This is Denmark famous for the world's
oldest flag there really old monarchy
Vikings it's also one the happiest
nations home to the inventors skype and
lego Denmark is located in Europe it
borders with Germany and has a
population of 5.5 million the country
became unified nation around 700 AD but
people happily settled there since the
end of the ice age and these two people
were thrown into a bog many thousands of
years ago and they've been preserved
ever since
so this is present-day Denmark but we
need to go way back to 100 AD where the
time there are a few tribes hanging
around the angles the jutes the Saxons
and the danes but then most people
decided to migrate to Britain so the
Danes moved into Jutland and finally
occupied the entire realm of present-day
Denmark as well as some parts of
present-day northern Germany
ok so let's go to the Viking age first
of all the biggest misconception about
the Vikings they didn't have any horned
hats and yes they raided village places
but they actually did a lot of farming
and were into settling and trading
compared with other people the time they were
also quite clean they have their own
language and pagan religion gods like
Thor and Odin that was until King
Bluetooth introduced Christianity
although some guy mentioned it before
but nobody listened to him
generally speaking the Norwegians
expanded to the north andwest places like
Ireland Scotland Iceland Greenland and
Newfoundland also known as Vinland the
Danes went to Western Europe and
southern Europe settling in danlaw and
Normandy and the Swedes went east they were
able to sail the seas and rivers
effectively thanks to their immense
longships they were great Seaman
they managed to sack Paris under the
leadership of Ragnar with 120 ships and
5,000 soldiers after besieging the
city
Charles Bold paid them a huge amount
of money to leave and a while before
that the Vikings first raided England
sacking and looting a monastery in the
north and having raided many times they
gained a reputation and soon found it
easy to trade and demand money but in 865
the Danes landed with the large army
In East Anglia with the intention of
conquering the anglo-saxon kingdoms
Northumbria east anglia sussex essex mercia
Kent and Wessex the armies of various
danish leaders had come together to
form one combined force the Great Heathen Army
under the leadership of the sons of
Ragnar after making peace with the local
East Anglian King the great heathen
army moved north where they catch the
City of York and Northumbria and install a
puppet king called Egbert they carried
on into Mercia but the king of Merica then
negotiated peace so they left them alone
for a while and they continued their
invasion by defeating King Edmund of
East Anglia and conquering East Anglia
The king of Wessex Ethelred and his brother
Alfred then attempted to stop them by
attacking the Danes Reading but they
were repelled however Ethelred and
Alfred managed to defeat them at the
Battle of Ashdown the Viking army then
decided to go back to Merica and they
took part of Merica
Alfred was the king of Wessex and he paid
the danes money or Danegeld to keep them
away for awhile and a guy named Guthrum
became leader of the Viking army
and after a few years of peace
Alfred managed to defeat the Danes at
the Battle of Eddington after spending
some time with a peasant and burning
some cakes Alfred and Guthrum then decided
to divide England into to Guthrum
converted to Christianity and
established Danelaw and kept Northumbria
under puppet rule over the years the
Danes were driven out of England by
Alfred sons and Viking rule ended when
Eric bloodaxe was to driving out of
Northumbria and the anglo-saxon kingdoms
were restored
after many raids along the coast of
France and the Netherlands one group of
Danes was granted permission to settle
northwestern france under the condition
that they defend the area from future
attacks as a result the region became
known as Normandy and it was the
descendants of these settlers who would
conquer England in 1066 the Danish
monarchy goes way back
starting with Gorm the old and there
were a few other possible kings but
their legendary so Gorm was the first
historically recognised a little while later
Swegn Forkbeard ruled Denmark and over in England
King Ethelred the unready massacred a
number of Danes including Swegn's sister
Swegn then launched attacks on England and
conquered it coming king but he died a
few months later after falling of a horse so
his son Canute then took power and the empire
stable throughout his rule but in 1042
Edward the Confessor became king of
England and the danes were never kings of
England again and sadly the Danish
Viking Kings never managed to turn
their conquests into a lasting empire
Danish fleets attacked estonia but they
could never control the area
it was only when Valdermar the
victorious landed in Estonia and defeat
the Estonians in a great battle upon
which estonia came under danish control
and legend has it this is when the
danish flag fell from the sky
he also gained some land in present-day
Germany however he was captured and
released on the condition that he
surrender all of his conquests except for
an island called Rugen and Estonian but
the territories were sold anyway when
the country fell into debt
however eventually the kingdoms of
Denmark Sweden and Norway had a
threesome and they United in what was
known as the kalmar Union
and its capital was Copenhagen Sweden
could never decided she wanted to be in
the union and one of many great events
in this period was the Stockholm bloodbath
where there was a successful invasion of
sweden by danish forces under the
command of King Christian the second and
around 80 to 90 people were executed and
eventually Sweden left Denmark also fell
into a civil war at this time because
some people wanted to be Catholics while
others wanted to be Protestant during
the sixteen and seventeen hundreds
Denmark and many colonies in Iceland
Greenland and the Faroe Islands they began
to establish trading posts a small town
in India West Africa however they lost
land in the second northern war against Sweden
they also colonized two islands in the
Caribbean called st. Thomas and st. John
the Danish East Indian trading company
also colonizing islands near them but
all there werre many wars in this period most of
them against Sweden there was the Seven
Years War the second northern war the
great northern war the thirty years war
now over in France they just had a
revolution and Napoleon takes power and
starts causing havoc in Europe during
the war the British Navy decided to stop
france from importing war materials so
they searched the vessels from neutral
countries Denmark and Sweden didn't like
this very much so they form an armed
neutrality later on Russia and Prussia
also joined in to Britain then got mad
and threw some crumpets in the floor
attack the Danish fleet in copenhagen
and they destroyed part of it a few
years later the French fleet was
destroyed
trafalgar the British then feared that the
French might seize the Danish fleet and use
against them so in their panic and
paranoya their attacked copenhagen again bombarded
the city and Copenhagen was forced to
surrender and the British took the
Danish fleet that's a little bit harsh
than best friends Norway and Denmark
broke up
and Denmark began to sell its
possessions it's five trading posts in
west africa went to Britain the danish
west indies of st. Thomas and st. John
were sold to the United States for a very
low amount of money and became the US
Virgin Islands Iceland also became
independent however Greenland the faroe
islands are still of the danish kingdom
and they love each other very much
joined with Denmark were too Duchys
Holestein and Schleswig I'm probably
pronouncing these wrong i know i
pronounce a lot of other things wrong
anyway there were a few issues in these
regions and war broke out
Prussian and Austrian forces crossed into
the duchies the Danes fought bravely
against them but they lost the duchies
were occupied
it's the 20th century and wars coming but
Denmark decided to remain neutral
one in ww1 smart but then Denmark got a phone
call from Nazi Germany and they signed a
10-year non-aggression pact but germany
invaded the next year anyway 7,000
Jewish Danes were then smuggled to sweden
Greenland was held by the united
states so denmark could later regain control
after the war was over
so when germany surrendered in 1945
danish occupation ended and Greenland
was given back to denmark today denmark is
prosperous nation and for some reason
the British still love their bacon
thanks for watching everybody an the
next country coming up is either go to
Spain Egypt or China i'll try and get a
video out every week or two so stay
cool and happy new year