According to top-mba-universities, Denmark is a state of central-northern Europe, with Copenhagen as its capital. The Denmark was inhabited in ancient times by Cimbri and Teutons, who maintained trade with the Roman Empire, and then with the Byzantine Empire. It was unified under the scepter of Gorm the Elder, whose son Aroldo II (d. 988) introduced the Catholic religion to the country and took over Norway and Holstein. Subsequently Canute the Great (d.1035) extended the Danish sovereignty over the whole North Sea, also subduing England, and over a large part of the Baltic. Upon his death, the great empire fell apart and England was lost. After averting a Slavic invasion (1043), the Denmark regained independence with Svend Estridson (1047-76), who separated the Danish Church from the Hamburg-Bremen archbishopric. A bloody civil war broke out between the descendants of Svend, from which Valdemaro I (1157-82) emerged victorious; under Valdemaro II (1202-41) the kingdom extended in the Baltic with the conquest of Estonia, and in Germany with those of the lands between the Eider and the Elbe, conquests recognized by the emperor Frederick II, but to which the same king he then had to give up (1227). Upon his death, Denmark became a field of internal strife and external aggression, which conditioned the country’s politics for over a century. In 1282 a was signed that influenced the country’s politics for over a century. In 1282 a was signed that influenced the country’s politics for over a century. In 1282 a was signed Magna Carta of rights, with which the sovereign undertook to govern the country in collaboration with the nobles and also conferred legislative powers on Parliament and some assemblies; the pact would last until the second half of the 17th century, when monarchical absolutism triumphed. The struggle for the reign between Christopher II and Valdemar III, in the second decade of the 14th century, led to the occupation of the country by German nobles, but Valdemar IV (1340-75) re-established the authority of the monarchy with a expansionist in the Baltic, even if the Hanseatic League forced him to recognize in 1370 (Peace of Stralsunda) his own commercial domain in the Baltic. In 1397, Queen Margaret established the Kalmar Union between the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway (Iceland also depended on it) and Sweden (then also including Finland). However, under Margaret’s successors there were attempts at detachment by Sweden, which in 1523 ended the Kalmar Union. In 1536, King Christian III introduced the Lutheran reform. After the intervention of Christian IV in the Thirty Years War (1625-29), hegemony on the Baltic Sea passed to Gustavo Adolfo’s Sweden. From 1660 the monarchy from elective became hereditary and the “royal law” (1665) conferred absolute powers on Frederick III. The affirmation of monarchical absolutism and a centralized bureaucracy accompanied a strengthening of the great landed aristocracy, which between the 16th and 18th centuries. it controlled almost all the arable land, subjecting the Danish peasants to a heavy servile condition; only from 1784 did the reform policy begin a process of social transformation, progressively abolishing feudal burdens, liberalizing trade and initiating a redistribution of land ownership. After the Great Northern War (1700-21) and the renunciation of supremacy, the long period of peace that followed was interrupted by the Napoleonic wars, which had serious economic consequences; in 1814 Norway was ceded to Sweden. The economic recovery after 1830 was accompanied by a growth of the liberal movement and nationalist agitation in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The attempt to integrate Schleswig into the Danish state resulted in the war (1864) against Austria and Prussia, which ended with the loss of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg.

Denmark from 1900 to today. The constitutional reform of 1915 sanctioned the full affirmation of the parliamentary system and the advent of universal suffrage (including women) in both chambers: for the Landsting, the seats for royal appointment were abolished, the election remained indirect and reserved for the major 35 years; at the Folketing the uninominal system was replaced by the proportional one between 1918 and 1920 and the voting age was lowered to 25 years (1920). In 1918 Iceland, which since 1874 had enjoyed increasing autonomy, obtained full self-government, remaining linked to the Denmark only in the person of the sovereign (Christian X: 1912-47) and as regards foreign policy, in the 1920 was also resolved the question of northern Schleswig, with a Danish majority, which in a referendum decided its annexation to Denmark; in the same year it joined the League of Nations. The Liberals returned to government in 1920-24 and 1926-29, but, starting in 1924, the Social Democrats became the country’s main political force, leading the government in 1924-26, with the support of the radicals, and then, in coalition with the latter, from 1929 to 1940. During the 1930s, measures to control the economy and extensive social legislation were adopted, which alleviated the consequences of the Great Depression, while in foreign policy the maintenance of a rigidly neutral position did not saved the Denmark from Nazi aggression. After signing the non-aggression pact proposed by Germany in 1939, the country was invaded in the spring of 1940, while maintaining a semblance of autonomy (social democratic-led governments of national unity) until 1943, when, faced with the development of the resistance movement, the German military authorities proclaimed martial law and imposed a harsh occupation regime. The war situation contributed to the definitive detachment of Iceland from Denmark. After the liberation (May 1945) the Denmark recognized Icelandic independence, regaining possession of the Faroe Islands and Greenland (made independent in 1979). The experience of the war led Denmark to abandon traditional neutralism and in 1949 joined the Atlantic Pact. In subsequent years, he conducted a cautious policy towards the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, it refused to accept nuclear weapons on national territory and tried to limit military spending. Joining the Nordic Council in 1952 reconfirmed traditional ties with the countries of the region. In 1973 the Denmark entered the EEC after a heated debate in the country. On the institutional level, the repeal of the Salic law allowed Margaret II to ascend the throne (1972). The system of welfare state was confirmed and extended. The Social Democrats remained by far the main force, but the rise of a pole to their left (the People’s Socialist Party established itself in 1960) and the weakening of the radicals made it impossible to reconstitute the pre-war bipartite majority, giving rise to considerable instability. politics. In 1982, the conservatives returned, for the first time since 1901, to the leadership of the country: the center-right coalition reduced the rate of inflation, but the persistence of a precarious political balance was confirmed by the numerous parliamentary defeats of the PH Schlüter government. In the nineties the political life of Denmark was characterized by the debate on European integration and by a difficult economic situation; in 1993 the commitment of the center-left executive, back at the helm of the country with PN Rasmussen (the center-left would remain in government until 2001), in support of the European integration process he weighed in the approval of the referendum to join the Maastricht treaty. In 2000, membership of the single currency was rejected and a transversal alliance was set up that saw united against the supporters of the euro (social democrats, liberals, establishment economic and financial, trade unions) the xenophobic extreme right of the Danish People’s Party (which made its mark in the 1998 elections), the People’s Socialist Party and environmentalists, united by the fear of a loss of national sovereignty to the advantage of Europe. After the 2001 general elections, dominated by the debate on the immigrant issue, the liberals, led by AF Rasmussen, gave life to a center-right government (with the conservatives and the external support of the Danish People’s Party) which introduced more restrictive rules in immigration theme. The early parliamentary elections of 2005 rewarded the coalition led by Rasmussen, while the growth of the People’s Party consolidated the presence of the most radical right in the national political landscape.