101 Facts About Denmark

well hey mother factors and welcome to this week's edition of one-on-one facts my name is sam and today we're going to talk about the bike loving country whose ancestors are vikings but they still love being comfy that's right it's denmark the danish have given the world a lot from the little mermaid to tiny little plastic bricks and what better way to repay them than with a video all about the may but how was denmark influential for disney which country is denmark secretly fighting with over an island and hey can we get a quick shout out for christina applegate two out of three those questions are going to be answered so let's make our way through the final country in the kalmar union trilogy the land where fairy tales come from as we go through 101 facts about denmark number one denmark is not just what it would sound like if a baby was listing names and forgot the name mark you know they would say you know uh paul and denmark oh sorry i started this off so badly it's a nordic country officially called the kingdom of denmark number two denmark lies southwest of sweden and south of norway but is kind of small compared to its scandinavian mates in terms of america it's somewhere between maryland and west virginia in size you know just for some context number three however the kingdom has more islands than ones that live in jack sheppard's head rent free in total 433 one of those islands is greenland the largest non-continental island on the planet it also isn't green number 4. today even though denmark retains control of foreign affairs and defense greenland does have its own government to run the country autonomously greenland also doesn't have any roads that connect the cities or even a railway number five but greenland has been eyed up for purchase because it's seen as a good military position in fact international nonsense merchant donald trump inquired about buying the island from denmark but denmark said nah number six denmark is expensive not to buy like greenland although yes it probably is that too what do i mean then well sales tax in denmark is one of the highest in the world 25 and on top of that they also pay 45 income tax too i hate you aaron my god number seven but their money worries ain't keeping them down as the u.n reported that it's the second happiest country in the world just after too sad they can't be first but dens the breaks you know like den mark number eight a reason for this and the reason for the high tax may well be that the health care and education systems in denmark is paid for by taxes meaning that everybody gets the very best well at least on paper they should anyway let's not get into that debate number nine now here's something about denmark it has a very very very elderly flag in fact it's the oldest in the world bless it ah the duna brag as it's called originated in the 14th century but apparently it appeared as early as 1219 during the battle of lin denise number 10. there's a code of conduct called the law of yante which is important to danish culture it basically says that no one person is better than anyone else and everybody should respect that it's not like an enforceable law or anything because how the hell would that work but just something nice to remember [Music] is so hot in here now then noble laureates are important people they're people who have received a prize for contributing to the world in variety of ways why am i mentioning them well denmark has 14 nobel laureates mainly with foreign literature and five in medicine denmark's population is quite small so the ratio of normal randos the nobel laureate is quite something one of the highest in the world in fact number 12. speaking of denmark's population it's around 5 million people that's less than the population of new york city but also more than syd cup but it's less than london but more than fresno you get the idea i won't do every single place ever number thirteen we have denmark to thank for a lot of the stories we tell our kids or weens as they say in scotland you know before they go to bed no i don't mean they were responsible for urban wealth she's from scotland but i'm talking about hans christian anderson a great dane not like that version of great dane who gave us fairy tales like the little mermaid the ugly duckling and the empress new clothes number 14. in fact the little mermaid even had her own statue commission in 1909 by carl jacobson while there's a ballet based on the little mermaid that must have been a very wet front row number 15. ellen price was the ballerina who modeled for the statue by the way keeping with the ballet theme it was unveiled in 1913 and made out of bronze by a chap called edvard eriksen number 16. oh by the way that carl jacobson fella well his dad was a fan of beer specifically lager so much so he made one and called it carlsberg it was founded in 1847 with its brewery being established in 1844 on the outskirts of copenhagen number 17. apparently the national sport of denmark is competitive and tracing what okay no it's not it's football but i had you there for a second night in fact the national team won the european championships way back in 1992 and in 1908 beat france 17-1 17. that's how old chandler bing was again in that film number 18 denmark is also keen on that whole cycling thing too apparently cyclist bjana reese won the tour de france in 1996. also in 2012 the national men's handball team won the most medals in european championship history in handball not not cycling that would be amazing but still it's good number 19. isn't it nice once in a while to get higgy with it okay that joke is great but it's a room by the fact that it's pronounced huge but isn't it nice to get hugh with your friends gang don't know what hugo means and no it's not that your mucky pup well let me tell ya hugey is a danish word that means cosy charming comforting content or special whether it's by yourself or with other people basically the things i wish i could feel number 20 it also means an art of creating intimacy now you may notice that i'm not saying can be translated into and that's because there's no one english word that actually translates directly not really anyway it's that unique of a sensation to the danish and you know what fair play to him number 21. hugh gibb became an absolute sensation a few years ago and some would argue it still kind of is with the rise of cottage core but anyway it was so much of a hit that it was in the shortlist for oxford dictionary's word of the year it was joined by words like alt-right and brexiteer but they all lost to post-truth god things are bleak aren't they number 22 oh ooh denmark has also given us some big cultural beasts too like film director carl dreyer who created the passion of joan of arc in 1928 which has since been considered a masterpiece and one of the best movies ever made i mean it's no cloverfield but sure number 23. speaking of film directors denmark has also given us one of the most provocative in the world lars von trier he's the director of family favorite films like nymphomaniac and antichrist movies known for being safe for all ages and free of any controversy whatsoever number 24. once a year in roskiller there's the ross killer music festival that's been going on since 1971. it's one of the biggest festivals in europe attracting a multitude of different musicians from many different genres including bob dylan taylor swift to muse to nine inch nails trent resin or did the soundtrack number 25 a strange tradition that i don't think the acts participate in at roskiller is the naked run which are obvious reasons we can't show you here so just pretend these normal festivals are nude the winners one male one female win tickets to the next year's festival so practice your cardio number 26 sadly though a couple of decades ago roskiller was hit by tragedy in the year 2000 while pearl jam were playing there was an incident in which nine concertgoers were killed by being crushed and suffocated it was deemed a terrible accident and the incident changed safety standards for other festivals across europe number 27 anyway rock festivals film directors and beer aren't the only things the place is famous for there's also the little bricks that really hurt when you step on them too i mean most bricks do but these ones do especially that's right lego was created in the town of dillon by ole kirk christiansen in 1932 being named after the danish legott which means play well number 28. in the early days it wasn't the plastic stuff we know and love today was just wooden toys that were made there it wasn't until 15 years into their existence that they started making the bricks to build dreams and you can have that slogan for free lego it's now a multi-billion dollar business nice work christiansen number 29 the danes bloody loved their bicycles so much so that katy melush should have written her song about them in fact nine out of every ten danes own a bike and to encourage them to do so cars are very heavily taxed nice number 30. no wonder they bloody love bikes so much the country's as flat as my rate of serotonin the highest point in the whole country is mullah and that's not a mountain or anything it's 170 metres tall it's basically just a hill number 31 allow me to introduce you to summer broth which no isn't this stock footage man but it's actually a type of sandwich an open one as it happens it used to be rye bread with lard which is where the name comes from actually but now they've gotten much fancier number 32 the danish geo data agency did something pretty cool back in 2014 that must have taken an unbelievable amount of time using 4 000 billion blocks and a terabyte of data they've recreated the entire country at a one-to-one scale within minecraft the idea was it could be used for educational purposes because i hear the kids love minecraft but then guess what happened number 33 america happened dynamite was meant to be banned in the map but somehow they found a way past that and users began to blow up painstaking recreations of real towns and how do i know it was americans because they planted the usa flags on the wreckage which just goes to show you why we are simply forbidden from having things that are nice number 34 surprisingly though while the usa is fighting to get denmark's land both in person by trying to buy greenland and digitally on minecraft another country is arguing with them over some land canada hand island an island that's barely half a square mile and has nothing on it technically is in the waters of both canada and denmark it's a debate that's been raging on and off and then on again since the 1930s number 35 and so they have a bloodthirsty fight over it okay not maybe not bloodthirsty it's not as aggressive as say someone like the us would do but they fight by members of both countries going there and leaving a bottle of alcohol along with a flag saying welcome to canada or denmark respectively replacing the other flag and bottle how beautifully petty number 36. the queen of denmark mcgrath ii drew illustrations back in the 1970s inspired by one specific franchise herbie oh sorry no not herbie the lord of the rings in fact she even sent them to j.r.r tolkien himself who liked them and art based on her illustrations were put into the danish versions of the books number 37 we're gonna talk about history now everybody if that's okay but first let me tell you about this absolute lunatic t cobra bra was an astronomer back in the late 16th century who discovered the supernova but oh he was so much more than that at one point for instance he had roughly one percent of all the money in denmark number 38 he lost his nose after a duel at university about a mathematical problem and so had a replacement made out of gold he also had a little person as his own personal court jester he even had a pet moose that he would send to parties instead of him but that moose died because it fell down some stairs because it was drunk number 39. this wolf of wall street-style scientists died in 1601 at the age of 54 after he drank so heavily he ruptured an organ and i know what you're thinking and in case you're wondering unfortunately yes somebody has stolen his golden nose from his grave number 40 right i could talk about him for ages but let's look at some more general history for denmark eh humans first trod the danish soil and dug some flint in the literal digging sense not just i dig that cat tens of thousands of years ago permanent settlements for human beings sprang up at around 12 000 bc mere days before your mum was born number 41 in fact in 2016 danish archaeologists found some hunting tools that dated back to 11000 bc which gave some insights into how the first people of denmark survived the meaning of life it's thought that a tribe that came to denmark from sweden in around 500 a.d are the ones responsible for a lot of the cultural and linguistic basis from which the danes flourished the stone cold lads number 43 and now is when we talk about those absolute horned lads that never actually wore horns the vikings the norse people came from scandinavia i.e sweden norway and denmark and basically shook the whole world up for centuries with their conquering and pillaging ways number 44 it's generally said that the viking age started at around 793 a.d as this was when the vikings came to england and started ransacking which was a real pro-gamer move one you could no doubt do yourself in assassin's creed valhalla maybe number 45 the vikings then established this new era in england as the dane lord named after the danish well okay sort of it was more that the danish were named after that but anyway it was a lot of the east and northeast of england which somehow included stone market i mean why number 46 those danish vikings were very good at what they did they wrote the sea like it was a sick beat and they were vanilla ice they were also better at trading more than that fictional character in that art of the deal book and liked exploring more than dora they even went as far as africa and russia number 47 oh by the way in old norse the country that this video is about was referred to as denmark which meant danish march you can see how denmark which is what the danish called denmark eventually evolved out of that number 48 the sort of first non-legendary ruler of denmark was a guy not so nicely named gorm the old surely he can't be called that from birth or at least that's as far back as tracing its roots goes he reigned in yelling in the year 936 a.d number 49 gorm the old had a son who ruled for 25 years and his name was john's no not really it was harold bluetooth and yes by the way this is where the technology bluetooth gets its name from in fact its symbol is his initials in bind rune number 50. anyway bluetooth was named after well bluetooth because harold managed to unify the disparate tribes of denmark together into one country and group which you know well done him fair play number 51 bluetooth's descendants swain forkbeard harold ii and the one that i need to be unbelievably careful about saying canute the great went on to do great things like conquering the whole of england i mean i'm not sure my ancestors would have enjoyed it but you know well done them i guess that meant there was now an anglo-danish kingdom over the british isles for a fair while number 52 by the year 878 the danes had conquered northern and eastern england and by the eleventh king canute had a big old kingdom which included southern sweden finland norway england and denmark number 53 canute had a son called harduknuts which is hilarious and i want to name my son harda sam who took over from him when he died thing was though denmark at that time was looking to be invaded by both norway and sweden and the threat meant he couldn't actually go to england number 54 some sources say that power shifted in england to more traditional english heirs which the danes weren't too happy about they tried some more attempts to take england back under their control but ultimately failed each one number 55 bluetooth's name is still remembered though with the yelling stone of harold the first it's in a church yard because it was around this time that scandinavia started to accept christianity more on that later number 56 so as i said earlier norway's current monarchy is traced back to 935 to gorm the old and yes this leads all the way up to the current monarch queen magritte ii who rules over the country when she's not sketching pippin number 57 anyway cut to the 13th century and a guy named valdemar ii ruled and managed to expand quite impressively he conquered areas like pomerania estonia mecklenburg and schweltzig holstein however various nobles wanted power over this big new country and so wouldn't you believe it fights happened and this didn't last for that long number 58 later from 1397 to around 1523 denmark was part of what was known as the kalmar union a super group of nations under one leader the union was made up of denmark norway and sweden but this fell apart when sweden decided they wanted out number 59 tensions were rising in denmark at the time too as some were saying they wanted to break away from being all catholic and stuff and wanted instead to convert to lutheranism number 60 king frederick the first was the king when this all played out and i don't envy him really he couldn't really decide what to do when people took this time to attack monasteries which you know not cool gang frederick then suddenly died leaving a right mess behind him number 61 the country was in tatters because nobody could decide who was to be leader next which meant civil war oh damn mark you really are in a state here catholic leaders were worried that a new prince would introduce lutheranism and so didn't choose him they also accepted help from mercenaries from lubeck which is now in germany to quell the anger number 62 thing is though when the lupec has invaded the peasants and middle classes didn't really see them as the enemy but rather as liberators as they were as against nobility as each other number 63 these aristocrats and catholic bishops then panicked and insulted christian third as king who ironically was a lutheran despite his name this did not help the revolt that was going on as rich people's houses were set on fire in certain places nintendo 64. a champ by the name of rant zou then took control of things by absolutely decimating these merry bands of peasant bashers cutting lubric off so no more of them could come on over to help and by storming copenhagen the capital of denmark which i'm sure we'll mention soon in more detail number 65 you see at this time copenhagen like the idea of being its own stronghold autonomously an idea fueled by the merchants who quite like not being meddled with and so they were as if they became cut off from the outside world number 66 thing is though that comes with downsides too for instance a lack of food sources and medical help when there were epidemics which oh gosh it seems like there were they then surrendered after going it alone for a year number 67 this all ended with the danish lutheran church becoming the only religion that was sanctioned by the state and the king was in direct control of it making the monarchy in a very healthy position of power indeed and they all lived happily ever after number 68 except they didn't because in 1657 denmark took the brave choice under frederick iii to declare war against sweden because they occupy poland territory that denmark had lost to them around 12 years earlier number 69 okay this proved to be a right job bluth i.e a huge mistake they weren't especially battle ready and they missed a massive opportunity sweden's king gustav at one point became separated from his army due to melting ice but the danes didn't capture him and instead wanted to sign a peace treaty which they did number 17. thing was this treaty wasn't great for them but it was very good for sweden the treaty of ross guild nothing to do with a naked festival made denmark give a third of its territory to sweden number 71 in response to this you'd imagine that frederick iii would be the least popular leader since uh zod don't know why my head went there but anyway but apparently not in fact he managed to convince the nobles to essentially give away their powers so he could rule with absolute authority number 72 then we get to the 19th century when things were a bit testy between france and britain and the british were worried that denmark were going to be on france's side now denmark stayed neutral in this fight along with sweden and prussia even signing a pact saying they would remain that way number 73 so what was the british response to that they bombarded copenhagen to bits obviously they set a lot of the city on fire paying particular attention to its naval yards they also confiscated the entire danish fleet of ships number 74 the british then offered the danes an alliance which was quite a baffling move which they said no to after their previous behavior so they joined the continental alliance against britain instead number 75 britain then responded to their decision by blocking off danish waters as well as norwegian but hey it's not about them this week this caused a fair bit of poverty in the old denmark so things weren't great number 76 oh i forgot to mention something when we talk about the 18th century the 18th century saw a bizarre practice arise in denmark called suicide murder which sounds like an edgy metal band who still play in a garage people who were suicidal back in those days were told that they would be sent to hell should they do it so as a loophole they would kill others to get the death penalty they would then circumvent hell by repenting on death row apparently meaning they'd go straight up to the big house number 77 things eventually got better for the old danish proving dream right there were some great up-and-coming thinkers along the way too in the 19th century like kierkegaard the philosopher the theologian nicolas frederick severity grunt vic and fairytale merchant hans christian anderson number 78 art also made a nice comeback in the 19th century too with the danish school of art being introduced and bertelth or weldson creating some nice statues for copenhagen like a good lad number 79 king frederick vii also did what his ancestors would have seen as the absolute inconceivable he abolished absolute monarchy getting rid of the king being the complete power over the country instead there was then a parliament it's worth noting by the way he was pressured to do this by the liberal political party so it probably wasn't all you know his idea number 80. there was also a lovely little constitution drawn up too with free speech and free religion and assembly and everything things got good everything went from being ruled by one bloke to being very democratic very quickly indeed number 81 but then a short while later world war ii happened but denmark actually managed to save 99 of its jewish population despite being occupied by the germans when the danish heard of the germans plans for danish jews from a german diplomat they quickly jumped into action number 82 that action to smuggle out the jewish population of denmark via the seas of sweden who were neutral in the second world war nearly 8 000 people were put on fishing boats and taken to sweden in a nationwide effort that saved all of their lives number 83 which brings us up to today give or take 80 years so let's discuss its capital copenhagen which by coincidence starts with a capital letter oh no way that's what all nouns do anyway copenhagen has a population of 794 128 and i know that because i counted them all myself on google maps number 84 but copenhagen used to be the capital of three countries i.e the kalmar union of norway sweden and denmark it lasted in this position for about 150 years too number 85. copenhagen has one clean harbour and that's because 15 years ago officials decided to get some clean water on the go by clearing up the waterways now there are several places in the centre of the city where you can swim outside because it's so clean number 86 once you've toweled off from that you can venture to durahavsbakken which mercifully is also known as bakken for short now this is the world's oldest amusement park having started in 1583. number 87. their water is so clean but so is the air too because copenhagen uses a lot of wind and solar power and has advanced heating systems that recycles waste too oh scandinavia ray number 88 like i mentioned earlier the danes bloody lover biker too don't they well probably just one you can't ride two bikes at the same time you probably can someone has anyway same goes for copenhagen the city has 250 miles of bike lanes and have a super highway for cycling specifically that connects to city to the suburbs number 89. for a time the university of copenhagen had its own court laws and even a prison all to itself the school had to obey the city's jurisdiction rules in 1771 but that was after over 290 years of having their essentially their own system number 90. we mentioned carlsberg earlier and i promise this isn't a spot or anything that said we would like some free ones if there's a going but the carlsberg brewery in copenhagen is home to the world's largest collection of unopened beer bottles leafson a danish engineer started to hoard them all in 1968 but when it became too big for his home he moved his collection to the carlsberg brewery instead number 91 in case you were wondering by the way son's still collecting to this day and has over 20 000 bottles now he's gonna have one hell of a party number 92 if you want to try some real world-class stunning nordic cuisine you can get a 20-course meal in a restaurant called noma in copenhagen it's been voted the best restaurant in the world four times by restaurant magazine i mean they must be the leading authority right and they've always been in the top five since 2011. you can get things like a reindeer tongue or a leg of moose number 93 copenhagen is also home to tavoli gardens which was built in 1843. this is the second oldest theme park in the world proving the danish really do know how to have a good time and we're innovators of doing so it's still open and gets well over four million visitors a year except maybe this year number 94. tivoli gardens also has another particularly important accolade too it's the inspiration for disneyland walt disney visited in 1951 and later said he wanted his own theme park to be as happy and fun as tivoli was so without copenhagen your disneylands wouldn't exist number 95 come to 1971 when a band of squatters took over an abandoned military base in the borough of christian's haven in copenhagen they turned it into their own commune and called it freetown christiania and it's still going today number 96 freetown christiania has nine key rules just one more than john ritter and these are known as its common law and those are no weapons hard drugs violence bike aware bulletproof clothes sale of fireworks thunder flashes though i'm not sure what that even means and no stolen goods number 97 so hard narcotics are banned there yes but marijuana isn't and is a big part of the lifestyle there because you know hippies there was a designated area where you could buy it too called the green light district but it's not exactly legal number 98 you see in 2013 a bill was passed in parliament which dictated that christiania would have to follow the same rules as the rest of denmark and crackdowns on various activities there have been going on ever since number 99 it needs to be the case too that everybody who lived there paid into a communal treasury a bit like how taxes are supposed to work but now there's an actual treasury for the place that has a committee of directors and everything whereas before it was like a communal free-for-all meeting type thing christiania is a car-free zone too with bikes and walking being the preferred method of transportation as it seems to be more green and environmentally friendly told you hippies number 101. in 2011 christiania finally set up the christiania foundation and used the money within it to buy the land that the commune was on with that they turned from squatters to landowners solidifying their position as a legitimate sector of copenhagen and a tourist hot spot so those were untrue facts about denmark do you live there have you been there let me know in the comments down below be sure to give this video a like and subscribe to one-on-one facts if you haven't done so already because cool what a team we've got going up in here let me tell you in the meantime though two videos on screen now one of which is going to clear your skin and the other one cures arthritis which one does which only one way to find out i guess and i'll see you there bye now

Channel: 101Facts

Views: 206,798

Keywords: 101 facts, 101, 101facts, denmark, denmark facts, facts about denmark, denmark eurovision, eurovision, copenhagen, denmark tourism, denmark vlog, denmark song, vikings, danish history, denmark history, danish facts, danish pastry, danish culture, scandanavia, danish royal family, queen margrethe, hygge, wienerbrød, hans christian andersen, the little mermaid, jutland, aalborg, zealand, funen, danish language

Id: zPKvnx_yPlc

Length: 27min 44sec (1664 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020