History of Denmark
1750 Germany returned the island of Aero, which measures 22 by 6 miles, to Denmark.
1764 Jan 19, Bolle Willum Luxdorph, a Danish diarist, described what is believed to be the first successful parcel bomb.
1768 Johan Friedrich Struensee, a German doctor, was appointed as personal physician to the insane young King Christian VII of Denmark. The doctor became lover to the queen, Caroline Mathilde, the younger sister of George III of England. Struensee was arrested and executed after 2 years.
1770 Nov 19, Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen, sculptor (Dying Lion), was born in Copenhagen, Denmark.
1775 The Danish Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory began operations.
1777 Aug 14, Hans Christian Oersted, Danish scientist, was born. He discovered electromagnetism.
1790s Denmark became the 1st country to abolish slavery.
1792 May 16, Denmark abolished slave trade.
1799 Nov 5, The Danish ship Oldenborg was wrecked on her outward passage by being beached in the roadstead at Cape Town, South Africa, during a north-westerly gale, thus becoming one of the 127 ships that have been lost on this minuscule portion of the South African coast.
1800 The Althing of Iceland was abolished by the Danish king.
1801 Apr 2, The British navy defeated the Danish at the Battle of Copenhagen.
1803 Denmark became the first country to ban slave trade.
1805 Apr 2, Hans Christian Andersen (d.1875), author of 150 fairy tales, was born in Odense, Denmark.
1807 Britain attacked, stole Danish fleet
1807 Sep 2, British forces began bombarding Copenhagen for several days, until the Danes agreed to surrender their naval fleet.
1807 Sep 7, Denmark surrendered to British forces that had bombarded the city of Copenhagen for four days.
1813 May 5, Soren Kierkegaard (d.1855), Danish philosopher and theologian, was born. He founded Existentialism and believed that man's relation to God must be an agonizing experience. Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time." His books included the philosophical novel Diary of a Seducer."
1814 Jan 14, The Treaty of Kiel or Peace of Kiel was concluded between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Kingdom of Sweden on one side and the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway on the other side in Kiel. It ended the hostilities between the parties in the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, where the United Kingdom and Sweden were part of the anti-French camp (the Sixth Coalition) while Denmark-Norway was allied to Napoleon Bonaparte.
1814 May 17, Norway's constitution was signed, providing for a limited monarchy. Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden.
1814 The union between the crowns of Denmark and Norway was dissolved. The Treaty of Kiel severed Norway's former colonies and left them under the control of the Danish monarch. Greenland became a Danish colony, and a part of the Danish Realm in 1953 under the Constitution of Denmark.
1814 Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden
1814 Universal primary education is introduced into Denmark