Denmark

Harald Bluetooth — the king who united Denmark and went wireless

Harald Bluetooth (r. c. 958–986 CE) was the first king to unite all of Denmark and convert it to Christianity — he commemorated his achievement on the Jelling Stones, Denmark's most important national monument, and his name was given to the wireless Bluetooth technology in 1997 because it "connected" devices as Harald connected Scandinavian peoples.

Cnut the Great — the North Sea Empire

Cnut (Canute) the Great (r. 1016–1035 CE) built the most powerful empire in early medieval Europe — ruling Denmark, England, Norway, and parts of Sweden simultaneously, he was the only Viking king to successfully conquer England, proving a more capable administrator than conqueror and creating a brief North Sea superpower that dissolved immediately after his death.

The Danish Reformation — a kingdom changes its faith

Denmark's Reformation (1536 CE) was one of the most complete religious revolutions in Europe — King Christian III, after defeating his Catholic opponents in a civil war, confiscated all church property, expelled the bishops, and imposed Lutheranism on Denmark, Norway, and Iceland simultaneously, transforming the Scandinavian church in a single year.

Denmark's colonial empire — the forgotten Atlantic slave trade

Denmark's colonial empire (1620–1953 CE) included the Danish West Indies (now US Virgin Islands), trading posts in West Africa and India, and Greenland — and Denmark was a significant participant in the Atlantic slave trade, transporting approximately 100,000 enslaved Africans, before becoming the first European country to abolish the slave trade in 1792 (effective 1792, in force 1803).

The Danish Golden Age — small nation, world-class art

Denmark's Golden Age (c. 1800–1850 CE) was an extraordinary flourishing of art, literature, philosophy, and science in a small nation recently humiliated by Napoleon's wars — Hans Christian Andersen wrote fairy tales that became the most widely translated fiction in the world; Søren Kierkegaard founded existentialism; Bertel Thorvaldsen's neoclassical sculpture adorned Europe's great cities.

Denmark resists the Nazis — and saves its Jews

Denmark's occupation by Nazi Germany (1940–1945 CE) was unlike any other in Europe — the Danes maintained civil governance for three years, then in October 1943 secretly ferried virtually the entire Jewish population of Denmark (approximately 7,000 people) across the sea to neutral Sweden in fishing boats, in what remains the most successful mass rescue of Jews in occupied Europe.