Denmark

From the late eighth century the seafaring peoples of the Danish islands and Jutland joined the wider Viking expansion that carried Scandinavians as raiders, traders and settlers across the North Atlantic, the British Isles and into eastern Europe. In the first half of the tenth century a new royal line coalesced in Jutland under Gorm the Old, the first historically recognised king of Denmark, who ruled from Jelling and raised the older of the two Jelling stones in memory of his wife Thyra.

His son Harald Bluetooth completed the unification his father had begun and, around 965, accepted Christianity, the official beginning of the conversion of the Danes. The great rune-stone Harald raised at Jelling about 965, recording that he 'won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian', carries the earliest written use of the name Denmark for a unified kingdom and bears one of Scandinavia's oldest images of Christ. The Jelling mounds, stones and church survive as a UNESCO World Heritage site and the emblem of the nation's founding.

The dynasty's power reached its height under Harald's grandson Cnut the Great, who won the throne of England in 1016, succeeded to Denmark in 1018 and took Norway in 1028, ruling a maritime North Sea empire that made him one of the most powerful princes of western Europe. The empire was a personal union held together by the sea rather than a durable state, and it did not survive long after Cnut's death in 1035; with the death of his son Harthacnut in 1042 the English throne passed back to an Anglo-Saxon line, ending Danish rule in England.

Turning points

1. c. 936–958Formation

   Reign of Gorm the Old at Jelling

   Gorm the Old, the first historically recognised king of Denmark, ruled from Jelling in Jutland and raised the older Jelling stone in memory of his wife Thyra, founding the royal line that endures today.

   [5] [3]

2. c. 965Formation

   The Jelling Stone names Denmark

   King Harald Bluetooth raised a great rune-stone at Jelling proclaiming that he had unified Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian; it carries the earliest written record of the name Denmark.

   [1] [2]

3. c. 965Religion

   Christianization of the Danes

   Harald Bluetooth accepted Christianity around 965, the official start of Denmark's conversion, binding the new kingdom to Latin Christendom and to the wider culture of medieval Europe.

   [4] [2]

4. 1016–1035War & Rupture

   Cnut the Great and the North Sea empire

   Cnut won the English throne in 1016, inherited Denmark in 1018 and conquered Norway in 1028, ruling a maritime empire across the North Sea until his death in 1035.

   ↗See the data

   [5] [3]

Figures of the era

After the North Sea empire dissolved, Denmark settled into the pattern of a medieval European kingdom, its crown contested among powerful nobles and its church drawn into the Latin order of bishoprics and monasteries. The reign of Valdemar I and his successors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries strengthened royal authority and extended Danish influence around the Baltic, even as the crown alternated between periods of expansion and of weakness under an assertive aristocracy and the growing commercial power of the German Hanseatic towns.

The decisive turn came at the close of the fourteenth century with Margaret I, daughter of a Danish king and widow of the king of Norway. After governing on behalf of her young son, she emerged as the effective ruler of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and in 1397 the leading men of the three realms met at Kalmar in Sweden to crown her great-nephew Erik of Pomerania as common king. The resulting Kalmar Union joined the three Scandinavian kingdoms, together with Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes, under a single monarch, with Margaret as the true power until her death in 1412.

The union was a Danish-led enterprise and never reconciled the ambitions of its members. Swedish nobles in particular chafed at Danish dominance, and the union lurched through revolts and reassertions over the following century. It came apart in the 1520s, when Gustav Vasa led a Swedish rising against King Christian II, whose massacre of Swedish notables, the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520, hardened the breach. Sweden's secession, conventionally dated to 1523, ended the union, though Denmark and Norway would remain joined for nearly three more centuries.

Turning points

1. 1387–1412Politics & Power

   The rule of Margaret I

   Margaret I governed Denmark, Norway and Sweden as their effective ruler from the late 1380s until her death in 1412, the architect and guarantor of the Kalmar Union.

   [7] [8]

2. 1397Formation

   The Kalmar Union

   At Kalmar the magnates of Denmark, Norway and Sweden crowned Erik of Pomerania as common king under the regency of Margaret I, uniting the three Scandinavian kingdoms in a single monarchy.

   [6] [7]

3. 1520War & Rupture

   The Stockholm Bloodbath

   King Christian II's execution of Swedish nobles after his coronation in Stockholm inflamed Swedish resistance and helped precipitate the collapse of the Kalmar Union.

   ↗See the data

   [6]

4. 1523Politics & Power

   Sweden leaves the union

   Gustav Vasa's rising drove out Danish rule and led to Sweden's secession from the Kalmar Union, leaving Denmark joined to Norway alone.

   [6] [8]

Figures of the era

The breakup of the Kalmar Union was followed by religious upheaval. The civil war known as the Count's War (1534-1536) ended with the victory of Christian III, who in 1536 broke the power of the Catholic bishops, confiscated church lands and established a state Lutheran Church. The Reformation bound church and crown closely together, enriched the monarchy and helped lay the foundation for the absolutist state of the following century. Denmark and Norway were now a single Lutheran realm, Denmark-Norway, ruled from Copenhagen.

For two centuries the central drama of Danish foreign affairs was the struggle with Sweden for mastery of the Baltic and control of the Sound, the narrow strait whose tolls were a pillar of royal revenue. The wars went badly in the mid-seventeenth century. In the Second Northern War the Swedish king Charles X Gustav marched his army across the frozen Danish belts and forced a humiliating peace.

By the Treaty of Roskilde of 26 February 1658, Denmark ceded the provinces of Scania, Halland and Blekinge in the south of the Scandinavian peninsula, together with the island of Bornholm and the Norwegian district of Trondheim. It was the greatest territorial loss in Danish history: the eastern provinces that had been Danish since the Viking Age became, permanently, Swedish. A renewed war soon won back Bornholm and Trondheim, but Scania was gone for good, and the Treaty of Roskilde, with the settlement that followed, fixed the essential modern boundary between Denmark and Sweden.

Turning points

1. 1536Religion

   The Reformation under Christian III

   After winning the Count's War, Christian III dissolved the authority of the Catholic bishops and established a Lutheran state church, making Denmark-Norway a Protestant realm and strengthening the crown.

   [9] [10]

2. 1563–1720War & Rupture

   The long wars with Sweden

   From the Northern Seven Years' War onward, Denmark and Sweden fought repeatedly for control of the Baltic and the Sound, a rivalry that steadily eroded Danish power in the region.

   ↗See the data

   [10] [11]

3. 26 Feb 1658War & Rupture

   Treaty of Roskilde

   After Sweden's invasion across the frozen belts, Denmark ceded Scania, Halland, Blekinge, Bornholm and Trondheim; the loss of the eastern provinces was the largest in Danish history.

   ↗See the data

   [11] [12]

4. 1660–1661Politics & Power

   The establishment of absolutism

   In the crisis following defeat by Sweden, Frederick III secured a hereditary and absolute monarchy, a system later codified in the Royal Law (Kongeloven) of 1665.

   [10]

Figures of the era

The eighteenth century brought a long peace, agricultural reform and the abolition of adscription, the system that had bound peasants to their estates. That stability was shattered by the Napoleonic Wars. Denmark's attempt to preserve armed neutrality and protect its merchant fleet drew British retaliation: the Royal Navy attacked Copenhagen in 1801 and again in 1807, when it bombarded the city and seized the entire Danish fleet. Pushed into alliance with Napoleon, Denmark found itself on the losing side when the emperor fell.

The price was Norway. By the Treaty of Kiel of 14 January 1814, Denmark ceded Norway to the king of Sweden, ending a union of more than four centuries and reducing Denmark to a small state, though it retained the old Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. The loss was a national trauma that turned Danish energies inward toward reform and the cultivation of a distinct national culture in what became known as the Danish Golden Age.

Pressure for political reform grew through the 1840s, and the European revolutions of 1848 brought it to a head. On 5 June 1849 King Frederick VII signed the June Constitution, the Grundlov, which abolished absolute monarchy and replaced it with a constitutional government and a bicameral parliament of the Folketing and the Landsting. Denmark became a constitutional monarchy, and 5 June is still marked as Constitution Day. The same decades, however, brought the explosive question of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein to the centre of Danish politics.

Turning points

1. 1807War & Rupture

   The bombardment of Copenhagen

   To stop the Danish fleet falling to Napoleon, a British force bombarded Copenhagen and carried off the navy, driving Denmark into alliance with France and toward ruin in the Napoleonic Wars.

   ↗See the data

   [21] [13]

2. 14 Jan 1814War & Rupture

   Treaty of Kiel: the loss of Norway

   Defeated alongside Napoleon, Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden, ending a four-century union, while keeping Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

   ↗See the data

   [13]

3. 1840sCulture & Ideas

   The Danish Golden Age

   In the decades after the loss of Norway, Denmark experienced a flowering of philosophy, science, art and literature, from Soren Kierkegaard to Hans Christian Andersen and the physicist H. C. Orsted.

   [16]

4. 5 Jun 1849Politics & Power

   The June Constitution

   Frederick VII signed the Grundlov, abolishing absolute monarchy and establishing a constitutional government with an elected parliament; 5 June is celebrated as Constitution Day.

   [14] [15]

Figures of the era

The duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, ruled by the Danish king but ethnically mixed between Danes and Germans, were the most dangerous problem of nineteenth-century Danish politics. When Denmark moved to bind Schleswig more tightly to the kingdom through the November Constitution of 1863, Prussia and Austria intervened on behalf of the German Confederation. In February 1864 their armies crossed the border, and after the fall of the Danish positions at Dybbol the small kingdom was overwhelmed.

By the settlement that ended the German-Danish War in 1864, Denmark ceded Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg to Prussia and Austria. The loss amounted to roughly a third of Denmark's territory and population and was the bitterest defeat in its modern history, leaving large numbers of Danes under German rule in Schleswig. The catastrophe drove Denmark out of great-power politics and toward a policy of caution and neutrality, and it fixed the recovery of Northern Schleswig as a long-cherished national goal.

The opportunity came with Germany's defeat in the First World War. Under articles of the Treaty of Versailles, plebiscites were held in Schleswig in 1920 to let the population choose its allegiance. On 10 February 1920 the northern Zone 1 voted about 75 per cent to rejoin Denmark, while on 14 March the central Zone 2, including Flensburg, voted about 80 per cent to remain German. From 15 June 1920 Northern Schleswig came under Danish sovereignty, celebrated by King Christian X's ceremonial entry, and the line between the two zones became the Danish-German border that endures to this day.

Turning points

1. 1864War & Rupture

   The Second Schleswig War

   Prussian and Austrian armies invaded after Denmark sought to incorporate Schleswig; following defeat at Dybbol, Denmark ceded Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg, losing about a third of its territory.

   ↗See the data

   [17] [18]

2. 30 Oct 1864Politics & Power

   Cession of the duchies

   By the peace ending the German-Danish War, Denmark surrendered the duchies to Prussia and Austria, placing tens of thousands of Danes under German rule and reshaping the southern frontier.

   [18] [15]

3. 10 Feb & 14 Mar 1920Politics & Power

   The Schleswig plebiscites

   Under the Treaty of Versailles, Zone 1 (Northern Schleswig) voted about 75 per cent for Denmark and Zone 2 about 80 per cent for Germany, determining where the new border would run.

   [19] [18]

4. 15 Jun 1920Formation

   Reunification of Northern Schleswig

   Northern Schleswig came under Danish sovereignty on 15 June 1920, marked by King Christian X's ceremonial ride across the old frontier; the boundary then fixed remains the Danish-German border today.

   [19]

Figures of the era

Denmark's interwar neutrality could not protect it. On 9 April 1940 Germany invaded, and the government, judging resistance hopeless, surrendered within hours. For three years a policy of negotiation preserved unusual Danish self-rule under occupation, until rising sabotage and strikes led the Germans to dissolve the government in August 1943. In October 1943, warned of an impending round-up, the Danes ferried more than seven thousand of their Jewish countrymen to safety in neutral Sweden, one of the most successful rescues of the Holocaust. The country was liberated on 4-5 May 1945.

After the war Denmark abandoned neutrality for collective security, becoming a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. At home, successive governments built one of the world's most comprehensive welfare states, funded by high taxation and underpinned by a strong labour market and broad social consensus. In 1973, after a referendum, Denmark joined the European Communities, the forerunner of the European Union, anchoring it firmly in western European integration.

The Kingdom of Denmark today is a unitary realm that also embraces two self-governing North Atlantic territories. The Faroe Islands gained home rule in 1948 and Greenland in 1979, the latter replaced by a wider self-government arrangement in 2009; Denmark's sovereignty over Greenland against a rival Norwegian claim had been confirmed by the Permanent Court of International Justice in the Eastern Greenland case of 1933. The realm's last territorial dispute, the long Whisky War with Canada over tiny Hans Island in the Kennedy Channel, was settled on 14 June 2022, when the two states agreed to divide the island, creating Denmark's only land border in North America.

Turning points

1. 5 Apr 1933Politics & Power

   The Eastern Greenland case

   The Permanent Court of International Justice ruled that Denmark held sovereignty over the whole of Greenland, rejecting Norway's occupation of the eastern coast and confirming Danish title to the island.

   [23]

2. 9 Apr 1940War & Rupture

   German occupation of Denmark

   Germany invaded on 9 April 1940 and Denmark surrendered within hours; a policy of negotiation gave way in August 1943 to direct German control and an active resistance movement.

   ↗See the data

   [20] [21]

3. Oct 1943War & Rupture

   Rescue of the Danish Jews

   Warned of a German round-up, Danes spirited more than 7,000 Jews across the sound to neutral Sweden, saving the great majority of the country's Jewish population from deportation.

   ↗See the data

   [20]

4. 1949Politics & Power

   Founding member of NATO

   Abandoning its old neutrality after the occupation, Denmark became one of the twelve founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949.

   [22] [21]

5. 1 Jan 1973Economy & Trade

   Accession to the European Communities

   After a 1972 referendum, Denmark joined the European Communities on 1 January 1973, the forerunner of the European Union and a foundation of its modern foreign policy.

   ↗See the data

   [16]

6. 14 Jun 2022Politics & Power

   Hans Island agreement with Canada

   Denmark and Canada settled the 'Whisky War' by dividing Hans Island in the Kennedy Channel, ending a dispute dating to 1973 and creating Denmark's only land border with North America.

   [25] [24]

Figures of the era