Portal:Denmark
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Denmark is the smallest and southernmost of the Nordic countries. Unified in the 10th century, it is also the oldest. Located north of its only land neighbour, Germany, south-west of Sweden, and south of Norway, it is located in northern Europe. From a cultural point of view, Denmark belongs to the family of Scandinavian countries although it is not located on the Scandinavian Peninsula. The national capital is Copenhagen.
Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea. The country consists of a large peninsula, Jutland, which borders Schleswig-Holstein; many islands, most notably Zealand, Funen, Vendsyssel-Thy, Lolland, and Bornholm; and hundreds of minor islands often referred to as the Danish Archipelago. Denmark has historically controlled the approach to the Baltic Sea, and those waters are also known as the Danish straits.
Denmark has been a constitutional monarchy since 1849 and is a parliamentary democracy. It became a member of the European Economic Community (now the European Union) in 1973. The Kingdom of Denmark also encompasses two off-shore territories, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, both of which enjoy wide-ranging home rule. The Danish monarchy is the oldest existing monarchy in Europe, and the national flag is the oldest state flag in continuous use.
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Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (June 7, 1879–December 21, 1933) was a Greenlandic polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" and was the first to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled.
Rasmussen was born in Jakobshavn, Greenland, the son of a Danish missionary and Inuit mother. He spent his early years in Greenland among the Inuit where he learned from an early age to speak the language, hunt, drive dog sleds and live in harsh Arctic conditions. "My playmates were native Greenlanders; from the earliest boyhood I played and worked with the hunters, so even the hardships of the most strenuous sledge-trips became pleasant routine for me." He was later educated in Lynge, North Zealand, Denmark. Between 1898 and 1900 he pursued an unsuccessful career as an actor and opera singer.
He went on his first expedition in 1902–1904, known as "The Literature Expedition", with Jørgen Brønlund, Harald Moltke and Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, to examine Inuit culture. After returning home he went on a lecture circuit and wrote The People of the Polar North (1908), a combination travel journal and scholarly account of Inuit folk-lore. In 1908 he married Dagmar Andersen.
Recently selected: Johan Ludvig Heiberg - Carl Nielsen - Christian IV of Denmark
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The occupation of Denmark was never an important objective for the German government. The decision to occupy its small northern neighbour was made to facilitate the invasion of the strategically more important Norway; and as a means against the expected British campaign in Norway. German military planners believed that a base in the northern part of Jutland, most importantly the airfield of Aalborg, would be essential to the invasion of Norway, and they began planning the occupation of parts of Denmark, but as late as February 1940, the decision to occupy Denmark had not yet been made. The issue was finally settled when Hitler personally crossed out the words die Nordspitze Jütlands (the Northern tip of Jutland) and replaced them with Dä, a German abbreviation for Denmark.
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Due to its advantageous proximity to the entrance to the Baltic Sea, Frederikshavn has historically been a naval base of some strategic importance. Peder Tordenskjold barricaded himself here in the fortress that German troops had already built in the 17th century.
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