The History of Denmark: A Fascinating Guide to this Nordic Country

By Christopher Hughes

Unearth the history and culture of this incredible Scandinavian country.

 

Denmark is a vibrant country with a history that stretches back thousands of years. From its ancient history and first inhabitants to the Vikings, late Middle Ages, and the journey to its place in the modern world, Denmark has a legacy imbued with mighty battles, seafaring warriors, stunning fjords, and a culture unique and unrivalled by any other in Europe.

 

This book seeks to explore Denmark like never before, unearthing its legacy and shedding light on what made the country what it is today. Covering everything from its early inhabitants to its evolution through the ages, you'll discover the chaos of the 19th century, Denmark's role in the world wars, and the post-war growth which elevated the country to where it is today.

 

With reference to modern Denmark and its culture, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn about Denmark's past, its achievements, and the current people who inhabit this beautiful land.

 

Buy now to unearth the incredible history of Denmark today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Hughes
• Release date: Dec 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393191759

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CONTENTS

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1 Ancient History

Denmark, today, is famous for its high standard of living, beautiful scenery, and being one of the forty-four remaining monarchies active in the world today.Made up of a peninsula and almost 450 small islands and a population just below six million – with an additional 100,00 between Greenland and the Faroe Islands – it is today considered one of the most developed nations in the world, where citizens have access to all years of education, full healthcare services, public learning resources (such as libraries and other media), among other benefits. Along with being one of the few remaining constitutional monarchies, Denmark also has one of the longest verified monarchical lineages, with current Queen Margrethe II able to trace her family line all the way back to the children of Gorm the Old, the king in the mid-900s.

And yet, Denmark’s history extends even before this point. Archaeologists, geologists, and historians believe that Denmark’s peopled history began during the Paleolithic Period, approximately 120,000 years ago following the last great Ice Age. The first-known settlements archeologists have discovered were built by reindeer hunters circa 12,500 B.C.E. Within the next thousand years, true forests began to spread across the land, and early Danes hunted a variety of large game that migrated to the area. Population began to boom as elk, giant deer, and reindeer became more and more available, and evidence of further settlements start to arise. They prospered for nearly a thousand years before a final cold snap – not quite intense enough to consist an ice age, but enough to eradicate much forest land and reinvigorate the tundra – impacted the area from 11,000 – 9,300 B.C.E. This bottlenecked the hunter population until only few scattered tribes of reindeer hunters survived. During this period, Denmark was connected to mainland Europe with a land strip called Doggerland and what is now Sweden with a huge freshwater lake that has now been replaced by the Baltic Sea.

The end of this age constituted the start of the Mesolithic Period, which would last until 3,900 B.C.E. The forests returned, and with them bison, wild horses, aurochs (a now-extinct European wild ox), and elk. Both red and roe deer populations boomed the denser the forests became, and within a few thousand years the settled peoples turned most of their hunting attention towards them. People most often settled near lakes, as they offered easier access to water and fish, and provided a level of protection against invaders. This has proven incredibly beneficial to researchers today; over millennia, the lakes slowly turned into peat bogs, near-perfectly preserving a variety of the early settlers’ tools, weapons, food fragments, and even entire portions of living buildings. Archeologists have discovered axes made out of elk antlers, fishing harpoons made of elk bones, and small flint blades. During summer months, when people could gather fruit and other plants to supplement their diets, people appear to have split into smaller single-family groups, likely to help better manage a distribution of growing food (in gatherer societies, too many people in one small area results in over-gathering and exhaustion of resources, so spreading out