The Danes are first mentioned in writings from the 6th century, and became widely known in the Viking age, when they together with their Norwegian and Swedish kin travelled far for trade, raids and settling.
The Danish kingdom was established during the Viking age. Harald Bluetooth was christened and succeeded in christening his realm in the 960s. The kingdom was enlarged and in the 11th century his grandson Cnut the Great was king not only of modern Denmark proper, but also the Scanian lands of southern Sweden, Norway and larger parts of England (which were lost after his death).
Denmark continued its expansion, of which both the church and the Hanseatic League played important roles. In a combined effort to counter the rising power and influence of the Hanseatic League in the Baltic area, the Kalmar Union was ratified in 1397, unifying the Kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden under one rule. Due to a complicated succession of unfortunate deaths and possibly some intrigues, fifteen year old Eric of Pomerania became first official monarch of the Kalmar Union. At the time of unification, the Norwegian Empire also included the North Atlantic Isles of Orkney, Shetlands, Faroes, Iceland and Greenland, while the Kingdom of Sweden included a large part of present-day Finland and the Kingdom of Denmark also included Holstein. There were several internal conflicts and uprisings in the following century, and in 1523, Gustav Vasa was declared king of Sweden and the union fell apart and ceased to exist. This was not a devastating loss for Denmark, which kept Norway (including the North Atlantic Islands), the Scanian lands and the economically important Danish straits under one rule. In the 1530s, Denmark had a Lutheran reformation and the king secured his monarchical power in relation to both the priesthood and the nobility. Trade and manufacture flourished.
During the succeeding centuries there were many wars, especially with the rising Swedish Empire, which established itself as a great power. Denmark was also involved in the Thirty Years' War, with little success. The Second Northern War dealt a very serious blow to the Kingdom of Denmark with Sweden emerging as the greatest military power in Scandinavia. Denmark ceded the Scanian lands, the Estonian possessions and a third of Norway in the humiliating Second Treaty of Roskilde in 1658 and now with Swedish forces occupying most of Denmark proper too. The occupied areas in both Denmark and Norway soon rebelled against the Swedish troops and succeeded in overcoming them, restoring Denmark-Norway in 1660. The Treaty of Copenhagen in 1660 settled the borders between Denmark and Sweden that we know today. The newfound military might and prowess of what now became the Swedish Empire, eventually provoked external forces and Russia initiated The Great Northern War in 1700, leading a coalition including Denmark-Norway against the Swedish territories. This led to a Swedish defeat and Russia was now the dominant military power of the Baltic area from 1721. This restored the power-balance between Denmark-Norway and Sweden and general peace lasted about a century, until the onset of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803. A series of very destructive fires, some caused by naval attacks, ravaged Copenhagen throughout the 18th century. The last of the great fires destroyed most of the city in 1807, when the British navy bombarded Copenhagen and destroyed the Danish fleet in a preemptive attack. Up on till then, Denmark had been firmly neutral in the Napoleonic Wars, but now sided with Napoleon and got involved in warring with Sweden once again. Even though the fighting with Sweden only resulted in status quo, the military expenses took a heavy toll on the economy and Denmark went bankrupt in 1813. In 1814, Norway, with the exception of the North Atlantic Islands, was ceded to Sweden as part of a larger European peace treaty.
Still a great naval power, Denmark engaged in the general European colonialism from the 1660s onwards, establishing settlements, plantations and forts in new colonies in the Caribbean, West Africa and India. Denmark continued to profit from the global slave, sugar and spice trade for about 200 years, but the African and Indian colonies were eventually ceded to the British Empire in the mid-1800s and the Danish West Indies were sold to the US in 1917.
On balance, the hard times after the Napoleonic Wars were a cultural golden age for Denmark, with intellectual and cultural giants such as Bertel Thorvaldsen, Hans Christian Ørsted, Nicolai Grundtvig, Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard. Compulsory education was introduced and the country took several steps towards democracy and rule of law, in great part as the result of political activity by liberal bourgeois groups. A democratic constitution was established in 1849 and the right to vote was given to men with their own property, aged over 30 or 40. In 1915, Denmark adopted a new constitution with universal suffrage.
The new democratic movements in Europe were paired with the emerging ideas of national states and in Southern Jutland, this led to internal conflicts over the local feudal forms of rulership. Two wars were fought there, involving military forces from Denmark, Prussia, Sweden and Austria, eventually leading to another Danish defeat and now cession of Holstein, Schleswig and Saxe-Lauenburg in October 1864. Marked psychologically by the many military defeats and extreme loss of territory over the centuries, in combination with the growing influences of the national-democratic movement, Denmark practically gave up on military force as a political tool. But wars continued to rage in Europe and in 1914, World War I broke out. Denmark succeeded in being neutral, but as Germany got heavily involved, Danes from the ceded Southern Jutland were conscripted along with other German citizens and several thousand southern Danes fell at the Western Front fighting for Germany against their will. In 1920, after the First World War, a referendum vote was eventually held in Schleswig-Holstein to settle the still unsolved internal conflicts and the northern part of Schleswig returned to Denmark once again while southern Schleswig and Holstein went to Germany, settling the Danish-German borders we know today. To this day a Danish minority lives in Southern Schleswig and a German minority lives in Northern Schleswig, now in peaceful acceptance.
Denmark tried to be neutral in World War II as well, but Germany invaded Denmark in April 1940. The defense was weak and there had been no proper mobilization, to avoid the horrors of a futile resistance. Iceland, still Danish, was taken by the UK a month later, without bloodshed, and was later handed to the USA. The Danish government agreed to the German conditions and by promising "loyal cooperation", the national authorities were permitted to continue their function, including sentencing anti-Semitic activists.
The national government was replaced by German authorities in August 1943, as it had not acted to German satisfaction. When the Germans decided to deport the Jews to Germany, most succeeded in escaping to Sweden, in a big rescue operation organised by the Danish Resistance. A large number of those who were captured were closely monitored by the Danish Red Cross and partly thanks to Danish political pressure not deported to the German extermination camps. The majority of the captured Jews survived this way, but a few hundred, in addition to imprisoned Danish communists, were deported by the Gestapo to German concentration camps for detention, forced labour and execution unfortunately. With the growing intensity of sabotage by the Danish underground resistance movement, Gestapo (led by Waffen SS Dr. Werner Best) increasingly ordered the Danish police to take counter measures, or face punishment. The organization of the Danish police was not cooperative with the Nazi agenda and the German reaction came promptly in May 1944 when around 2,000 police officers were arrested countrywide and deported to concentration camps in Germany. The Danish government later succeeded in improving their treatment in German captivity, but around 100 died, the majority in Buchenwald. Denmark was liberated by British forces led by Field Marshall Montgomery on 5 May 1945, two days before the capitulation of Nazi Germany.
After the war, Denmark sought closer cooperation with the other Nordic countries, but was also among the founding members of NATO and the UN. Iceland declared and gained its independence whereas Greenland and the Faroe Islands were granted greater degrees of home rule. The Schleswig issue was further resolved to the satisfaction of most involved via a treaty with Germany guaranteeing cultural, political and economic rights to the minorities on both sides of the border. After being on the sidelines of European integration, Denmark finally joined the EU in 1973; however, the country does not participate in the Eurozone, but the krone is pegged to the euro.
Denmark is participating in the general political and economic integration of Europe. However, the country has opted out of the European Union's Maastricht Treaty, the European monetary union (EMU - the Eurozone), and issues concerning certain internal affairs.
