Hey Geograpeeps, good to see you again, so this is gonna be another
*filler week!*
I'm currently working on the scripts for the next few countries
and I'm talking to a lot of you guys that are from those countries,
so in the meantime, let's talk about something!
Now as some of you know, I kind of have a little bit of a soft spot in my heart for Denmark,
because Denmark was the very first European country
I went to plus you know the Denmark video is kind of like one of the most popular videos on this channel
I'm just saying the land of fierce Nordic folk Vikings and warriors that took over an empire that expanded across four continents
Before we jump into all that though speaking of Vikings this episode is once again sponsored by Vikings War of Clans now
I know quite a few of you guys and girls that watch this Shore gamers, so if you haven't played this game
Now is the perfect time to start Vikings War of clans
Which is now on mobile is similar to PC strategy games of the 90s and 2000's in which you can choose your own playstyle
Dominate by destroying cities build impregnable fortresses and use your diplomacy skills to rule the world
Just like the Vikings play for just five minutes and see why over ten million players all across the world are so addicted to it
You can support Geography Now by downloading the game and using the links below
You'll get your initial protection shield for free and my special bonus of two hundred gold for a fast and successful start
Vikings war of clans available on the App Store and Google Play Thanks Vikings warm plans you guys Rock
I love working with you guys now when I was in high school
I actually wrote my senior thesis
arguing on the theory that
Fortinbras in Shakespeare's Hamlet could actually be seen as the underlying protagonist in the otherwise Hamlet centered plotline
I think I got like a b-minus on that paper, but I was like boohoo. I'll take it State College here
I come and then I got rejected from the state college that I applied to anyway the point is
Hamlet is Danish and after you pass all of those boring emo
Sounding monologues and soliloquies the story actually kind of gives you a feel of how the Danes
operated back in the day when they were conquerors now when it comes to European colonialism most people only focus on the big four the
British French Spanish, and the Portuguese clearly they have made the biggest geopolitical impact in the world however
They weren't the only Europeans to take a stab at overseas colonization everybody was getting in on it
austria-hungary tried to take a slice of North Borneo
Technically the polish-lithuanian tried to take a piece of the Gambia remember the Gambia episode yeah
That was a weird one even the Scottish tried to take over Panama that one time most of these land grab attempts
pushed back due to the lack of finances resources and personnel to sustain and manage the
properties and settlements that they had set up and eventually most of them were either sold off or abandoned and reclaimed by larger empires the
17th century was like the golden years of Danish colonization
They joined up with the Norwegians they set their hopes high and sailed far the Danes were a little clever though
They knew that they were smaller not as rich and imminent doom was coming so they kind of tossed all their small cards and held
On to the big guys first of all the main areas that the Danish colonized in the past were as follows for a brief time
In Africa they had five settlements along. What is now ghana known back
Then as the Danish gold coast the fort's of Christiansborg Fredensborg
Prinsensten Kongensten and Augustborg all of these were eventually sold to England in the Caribbean
They basically owned all of what is now the US Virgin Islands the three largest ones being st. Thomas st. John and st.
Croix they sold them to the u.s.
in 1917 for 25 million dollars in gold in Asia
They set up colonies and tongan body in the Tamil Nadu area and set up poor which included the towns of
Acne and peeta poor just north of modern-day Calcutta there
They even built set on poor college, which still stands today
And finally the knick of our Islands which for about a hundred years was known as new Denmark now in Europe
It's a little tricky because there were kind of like two main periods of Danish conquering in Europe before
Lutheranism in the 1500s and after before the
1500s Denmark always gonna have the upper hand when it came to conquering over the Nordic areas there was that Kalmar Union
Thing in which they kind of made a deal with Norway and Sweden saying okay, let's all cooperate and share everyone's territories
But my monarchs get the final say this included Iceland the Faroe Islands Greenland Svalbard and even snippets of Finland
Then there was that time they took over parts of Estonia, Latvia and North Germany you can even see remnants like st.
Olaf's Church and Tallinn built by the Danes if we go back even further to Old Norse times they even took parts of England and
Scotland like literally there was a Danish King on the throne, which is why today?
We have certain words in the English language that are Old Norse Danish derived such as leg
Freckle root want and skin all Norse derived in a nutshell
Danes have made their mark in the North literally every section of the Nordics even
Finland and Estonia have some kind of Danish connected past today the last remnants of Danish colonisation live within Greenland and the Faroe
Islands with have high levels of home rule and autonomy however
Let's play a little mental exercise shall we what would it look like if the Danish actually developed into a full-fledged
world regional influencing Empire
What if they had enough money resources and people to sustain their settlements abroad well for one?
They would probably have the most success in
India their settlement in Serampore was only about 25 kilometers away from Calcutta if they had the opportunity to creep down just a little bit
They would have snagged one of the largest
Economic hubs of all of India creating a strange new language pocket kind of like what the Portuguese did was Goa accept 15 times bigger?
If that happened it would have dramatically changed the entire game
Denmark would have been a contender to reckon with and with India you have power now in Africa
It was a little different because it kind of depended on who gained favor from the indigenous
African tribal leaders if the Ashanti Kingdom had shown favor towards the Danes instead of the Brits it would have changed the entire
game for pretty much, West Africa
It's possible that through the Ashanti rulers Danes would have had access to the rest of Ghana and even possibly to their cousins the akan
in the Ivory Coast
This means that all that gold money will go to Denmark and not the UK which would dramatically change the economies of both nations which
Means back home the Europeans would hear about this flourishing resource extracting Denmark
Which put them on a whole other bracket level of popularity now, if money was surging from India and Africa
It's possible that they could have actually bought more islands in the Caribbean making more of an impact in North America
I would guess that if they had enough money
they would probably buy the
remainder of the Virgin Islands including the ones owned by the British as well as maybe Isla de
Culebra next to Puerto Rico
And if the Brits were very desperate to make money they might have even sold off an guila creating a whole strange
new Danish West Indies
Archipelago the largest region of influence that lasted though was of course the Nordics Denmark always kind of had a firmer
Historical grasp on the Arctic throughout history had this grasp lasted until today
Denmark would have been in control of nearly a third of all Arctic transport and trade business
theoretically
Virtually no
Europeans except the Russians could enter this area for whatever reason without passing through some kind of economic zone controlled by Denmark the entire
Norwegian and Greenland seas along with parts of the North Sea Baffin Bay and the North Atlantic would be mostly monitored under one unit and
over a million square miles
That's like 80% the size of all the Arctic seas above Russia the Barrens
Laptev east siberian and Chukchi granted not many people would be passing through or trading in these areas, but hey
It's the size that counts in the end Denmark's Achilles heel was most likely the fact that they just always had a smaller
population than their competitors, which makes global impact harder today, though
The Danes are just happy living where they are and Legos will never go out of style so they're kind of set for life
But Greenland and Faroe Islands no wandering off. Okay, keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle you're coming along for the ride
Thanks for watching subscribe if you'd like stay cool stay tuned