Danish Americans

Danish Americans (Danish: Dansk-amerikanere) are Americans of Danish descent. There are approximately 1,500,000 Americans of Danish origin or descent. Most Danish-Americans live in the Western United States or the Midwestern United States. The first Dane known to have arrived in North America was the explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681–1741), who, in 1728, discovered a narrow body of water that separated North America and Asia. Today, this strai... More

Danish Americans (Danish: Dansk-amerikanere) are Americans of Danish descent. There are approximately 1,500,000 Americans of Danish origin or descent. Most Danish-Americans live in the Western United States or the Midwestern United States. The first Dane known to have arrived in North America was the explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681–1741), who, in 1728, discovered a narrow body of water that separated North America and Asia. Today, this strait is named the Bering Sea in his honor. Bering was also the first European to arrive in Alaska in 1741. In 1666 the Danish West India Company took the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean. Eventually, Danes also took the islands of St. John (1717) and St. Croix (1733), then exporting after African slaves to the islands, who were devoted to snuff, cotton and sugar. Thus, began to establish trade with New England. Later, in 1917, they sold the islands to the United States, and they were renamed "U.S. Virgin Islands." Early in the seventeenth...

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