About Haakon Lie
Haakon Steen Lie (22 September 1905 – 25 May 2009) was a Norwegian politician who served as party secretary for the Norwegian Labour Party from 1945 to 1969. Coming from humble origins, he became involved in the labour movement at an early age, and quickly rose in the party system. After actively working for the resistance movement and the exiled government during World War II, he was elected to the second-highest position in the party after the war, and his years in office were the most successful in the party's history. Lie is widely considered – along with Einar Gerhardsen – to be the architect of the post-war success of the Labour Party, and of the Norwegian welfare state. At the same time, he has also been the subject of criticism for organising surveillance of Norwegian opposition figures, in particular communists. Lie remained active in Norwegian public life, even after his 100th birthday, and in 2008 he celebrated his 103rd birthday with the release of a new biography, "Slik jeg ser det nå" (As I see it now). When the Labour Party left the Third Communist International in 1923, and was split between the new-founded Communist Party and the remaining social democrats, Lie ended up on the latter wing. In 1931 he was made leader of Arbeidernes Opplysningsforbund (AOF, Workers' Information Society), an institution recently created to promote education in the working class. At this point further broadcasts became impossible, and Lie had to make his way south, through Finland and Sweden, to Oslo.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.