During a Florida rally on Saturday 18 February, while defending his controversial travel ban, Donald Trump told supporters: “We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden.” The US president was right: who would believe this? Because the truth (as in the plain old, pre post-truth truth) is, no terrorist attack took place in Sweden on Friday night.

So what did happen in the 14th most-peaceful country on the planet on 17 February? On Twitter – where the hashtags #lastnightinSweden and #jesuisIkea were quickly born – a school librarian running one of Sweden’s official accounts explained that: “The main news right now is about Melfest.” The annual Melodifestivalen, now in its 57th year, will select Sweden’s entry for this year’s Eurovision song contest. And, indeed, on Friday night, Owe Thörnqvist, an 87-year-old Swedish singer-songwriter, suffered technical problems in rehearsals while performing Boogieman Blues. Could this be the national incident to which Trump was referring? If so, fear not – Thörnqvist made it through to the finals.

As Trump tweeted to claim he was referring to a Fox News story and not a specific incident, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet helpfully documented “everything that happened in Sweden last night”. This included a man setting himself on fire in a Stockholm plaza, a police chase through the capital, and a road closing between Katterjåkk and Riksgränsen due to strong winds and snow. The Met Office also issued an avalanche warning, which one assumes was unrelated to the storm brewing in Melbourne, Florida, the following day.

Ikea apologised for publishing a special edition of its catalogue that featured no women or girls. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

According to the Local, which reports Sweden’s news in English, headlines on Friday included an outcry over a special edition of an Ikea catalogue released in Israel featuring no women, which led to the retailer apologising for the “unfortunate” incident. An interview with Anders Ryttar, a Swedish 3D artist whose animation of Trump’s infamous handshake went viral after being retweeted by JK Rowling, was also published. Perhaps the “Trump pump” meme – which Ryttar described as being created “in good fun” and not as “some sort of deep meaningful stance or propaganda piece” – was taken the wrong way in the White House? And, in northern Sweden, a pensioner revealed the surreal moment when a large male elk (described in the Local’s headline as “confused” and “randy”) entered his garden and mounted his wooden elk statue. “I shouted at him ‘Get lost’, but he didn’t give a toss,” said Ove Lindqvist. One assumes the elk, the country’s largest mammal, was Swedish and not part of a migrating herd.

Finally, some have pointed out that Trump may have got the dates mixed up but he was, in fact, right. There was a recent terrorist attack in Sweden, which took in more refugees per capita than any other European country in 2016 – but it was by neo-Nazis on a refugee centre last month.