FACTS ABOUT DENMARK 3

- Popular Danish candy manufacturer Bon Bon is famous among Danish children for marketing its products under names like “gull droppings”, “burping duck” and “rich swine”.

- Helle Thorning-Schmidt, elected on October 3, 2011, is Denmark’s first female prime minister.

- Denmark is famous for its liberalism, and this best illustrated by “Christiania”, a hippy commune that sprung up in 1971. Allowed to remain a social experiment, it is still inhabited by about 900 people seeking an alternative lifestyle.

- Dane are relaxed when it comes to issues such as marriage. The country’s divorce rate is one of the highest in Europe and nearly 20% of Danish couples cohabitate without ever getting married in what are called “paperless marriages”.

- Danish philosopher Sǿren Kierkegaard is one of the most important philosophers of the 19th century and is known as the “Father of Existentialism”, which describes human life in terms of ethics, aesthetics and religion.

- The United States bought the Virgin Islands, part of the West Indies, from Denmark in 1917.

- On Denmark’s Faroe Islands, there are twice as many sheep as people.

- Denmark is the world’s biggest producer of ranched minks.

- Dyrehavsbakken, or Bakken, located within Denmark’s peaceful Dyrehaven, is the world’s oldest amusement park.

- Gracefully curving lur horns, found in Denmark, are the world’s oldest surviving musical instrument. Some date to the Bronze Age.

- The first Danish newspaper was founded in 1666 and written entirely in verse. The oldest of the existing newspaper, Berlingske Tidende (Berling’s Times), was founded by a Copenhagen printer in 1749.

- Danish polar explorer and anthropologist Knud Rasmussen was the first European man to cross the Northwest Passage by dog sled.

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