Portal:Denmark/Selected biography/Archive

Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 - May 26, 1914), a Danish-American muckraker journalist, photographer, and social reformer, was born in Ribe, Denmark. He is known for his dedication to using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the less fortunate in New York City, which was the subject of most of his prolific writings and photographic essays. As one of the first photographers to use flash, he is considered a pioneer in photography.

Riis held various jobs before he landed a position as a police reporter in 1873 with the New York Evening Sun newspaper. In 1874, he joined the news bureau of the Brooklyn News. In 1877 he served as police reporter, this time for the New York Tribune. During these stints as a police reporter, Riis worked the most crime-ridden and impoverished slums of the city. Through his own experiences in the poor houses, and witnessing the conditions of the poor in the city slums, he decided to make a difference for those who had no voice.

He was one of the first Americans to use flash powder, allowing his documentation of New York City slums to penetrate the dark of night, and helping him capture the hardships faced by the poor and criminal along his police beats, especially on the notorious Mulberry Street. In 1889, Scribner's Magazine published Riis's photographic essay on city life, which Riis later expanded to create his magnum opus How the Other Half Lives. This work was directly responsible for convincing then-Commissioner of Police Theodore Roosevelt to close the police-run poor houses in which Riis suffered during his first months as an American. After reading it, Roosevelt was so deeply moved by Riis's sense of justice that he met Riis and befriended him for life, calling him "the best American I ever knew." Roosevelt himself coined the term "muckraking journalism", of which Riis is a recognized protagonist, in 1906.

Recently selected: Bertel Thorvaldsen - Rasmus Rask - Ludvig Holberg

Canute the Great (d. November 12, 1035) was a Danish king of England, Denmark, Norway, and Sigtuna in Sweden, as well as overlord of Pomerania, and the Mark of Schleswig. He, in treaty with the Holy Roman Emperors, Henry II and Conrad II, as well as, in good relations with the papacy, was the ruler of a Scandinavian domain which saw the Kingdom of Denmark at its height. A king of the Vikings, historians also know Cnut as, the Emperor of the North.

Canute was the son of king Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark and his queen, the daughter of Mieszko I, first Duke of Poland. Little is known for sure of his life before 1013. That year, in August, he accompanied his father on his successful invasion of England. While King Sweyn was off conquering England, Canute was left in charge of the remainder of the Danish army at Gainsborough. Upon the sudden death of his father the following February, Canute was proclaimed king by the Danish army. However, the national assembly of Earls refused to accept him and instead voted to restore the defeated king Ethelred the Unready from exile in Normandy.

Ethelred quickly raised an army, forcing Canute to abandon England and sail back to Denmark with the remnants of his army. When he sailed past Sandwich, Canute mutilated hostages given to his father as pledges of support from local nobles.

Canute’s older brother Harold became the King of Denmark on their father’s death. Canute suggested that the two brothers should jointly rule the Kingdom, which found little appeal with his brother. However, Harold promised him assistance and support for his conquest of England if Canute renounced his rights to the Danish throne. Canute kept silent and waited for an opportunity to present itself when he would reclaim his throne in England.

Canute proceeded to England in the summer of 1015 with a Danish force of approximately 10,000 men. This time, he was joined by his Norwegian brother-in-law Eiríkr Hákonarson, who was an experienced soldier and statesman. Fortunately for Canute, a strong mercenary chief, Thorkell the High, pledged alliegance to him. The Earl Eadric also joined the Danes with forty ships. The invasion force landed in Essex, which was occupied quickly.

Recently selected: Jacob Riis - Bertel Thorvaldsen - Rasmus Rask

Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig (September 8, 1783 – September 2, 1872) was a Danish teacher, writer, poet, philosopher, historian, minister, and even politician. He is one of the most influential people in Danish history, his philosophy giving rise to a new form of non-aggressive nationalism in Denmark in the last half of the 19th century. He was married three times, the last time in his seventy-sixth year.

Grundtvig and his followers, Grundtvigians, are credited with being very influential in the formulation of modern Danish national consciousness. Their attitude is well illustrated in the very different reaction of Danes to their national defeat in 1864 against Prussia versus the national trauma of German defeat in World War I.

Recently selected: Canute the Great - Jacob Riis - Bertel Thorvaldsen

Hans Christian Ørsted (August 14, 1777 – March 9, 1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist, influenced by the thinking of Immanuel Kant. He is best known for discovering the relationship between electricity and magnetism known as electromagnetism.

From 1806, Ørsted was a professor at the University of Copenhagen. He was instrumental in the founding of the university's Faculty of Science shortly before his death. In the 1960's the main building complex of the university's new science campus was named in his honor.

Ørsted was the driving force behind the founding of the Technical University of Denmark in 1829 and served as its first director. The present-day department of applied electronics is named Ørsted·DTU in his honor.

Recently selected: Grundtvig - Canute the Great - Jacob Riis

Hans Christian Ørsted (August 14, 1777 – March 9, 1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist, influenced by the thinking of Immanuel Kant. He is best known for discovering the relationship between electricity and magnetism known as electromagnetism.

From 1806, Ørsted was a professor at the University of Copenhagen. He was instrumental in the founding of the university's Faculty of Science shortly before his death. In the 1960's the main building complex of the university's new science campus was named in his honor.

Ørsted was the driving force behind the founding of the Technical University of Denmark in 1829 and served as its first director. The present-day department of applied electronics is named Ørsted·DTU in his honor.

Recently selected: Grundtvig - Canute the Great - Jacob Riis

Tycho Brahe, born Tyge Ottesen Brahe (December 14, 1546 – October 24, 1601), was a Danish nobleman astronomer as well as an astrologer and alchemist. He was granted an estate on the island of Hven and the funding to build the Uraniborg, an early research institute, where he built large astronomical instruments and took many careful measurements. As an astronomer, Tycho worked to combine what he saw as the geometrical benefits of the Copernican system with the philosophical benefits of the Ptolemaic system into his own model of the universe, the Tychonic system. From 1600 until his death in 1601, he was assisted by Johannes Kepler, who would later use Tycho's astronomical information to develop his own theories of astronomy.

He is credited with the most accurate astronomical observations of his time, and the data was used by his assistant Kepler to derive the laws of planetary motion. No one before Tycho had attempted to make so many redundant observations, and the mathematical tools to take advantage of them had not yet been developed. He did what others before him were unable or unwilling to do — to catalogue the planets and stars with enough accuracy so as to determine whether the Ptolemaic or Copernican system was more valid in describing the heavens.

Recently selected: Hans Christian Ørsted - Grundtvig - Canute the Great

Bjørn Lomborg (born January 6, 1965) is a Danish political scientist and former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen. He is most known for his best-selling controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist, and the allegations of scientific dishonesty that followed it. He is now an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School.

Lomborg is also a vegetarian (although he is not a supporter of animal rights), and known to wear jeans to formal business meetings.

According to an interview published in 2005 by the San Francisco Examiner, the book he would most liked to have written is Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society, by Jared Diamond.

Bjørn Lomborg spent one year as an undergraduate at the University of Georgia, earned a Master's in political science at the University of Aarhus in 1991, and earned a Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, 1994.

Recently selected: Tycho Brahe - Hans Christian Ørsted - Grundtvig

Karen von Blixen-Finecke (April 17, 1885 – September 7, 1962), neé Dinesen, was a Danish author also known under her pen name Isak Dinesen. Blixen wrote works both in Danish and in English. She is best known, at least in English, for her account of living in Kenya, Out of Africa, and a film based on one of her stories, Babette's Feast.

Daughter of Ingeborg Westenholz Dinesen, and the writer and army officer Wilhelm Dinesen, and sister of Thomas Dinesen, she was born into a Unitarian aristocratic family in Rungsted on the island of Zealand, in Denmark, and was schooled in art in Copenhagen, Paris, and Rome. She began publishing fiction in various Danish periodicals in 1905 under the pseudonym Osceola, the name of the Seminole Indian leader, and possibly inspired by her father's connection with American Indians. From August 1872 to December 1873, Wilhelm Dinesen had lived among the Chippewa Indians, in Wisconsin, where he fathered a daughter, who was born after his return to Denmark.

Recently selected: Bjørn Lomborg - Tycho Brahe - Hans Christian Ørsted

Ole Rømer (September 25, 1644 – September 19, 1710) was a Danish astronomer who made the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light (1676).

Rømer was employed by the French government: King Louis XIV made him teacher for the Dauphin, and he also took part in the construction of the magnificent fountains at Versailles.

In 1681, he returned to Denmark and was appointed professor of Astronomy at Copenhagen University. He was active also as an observer, both at the University Observatory at the Round Tower and in his home, using improved instruments of his own construction. Unfortunately, his observations have not survived: they were lost in the great fire of Copenhagen in 1728. However, a former assistant (and later an astronomer in his own right), Peder Horrebow, loyally described and wrote about Rømer's observations.

Recently selected: Karen Blixen - Bjørn Lomborg - Tycho Brahe

Ole Rømer (September 25, 1644 – September 19, 1710) was a Danish astronomer who made the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light (1676).

Rømer was employed by the French government: King Louis XIV made him teacher for the Dauphin, and he also took part in the construction of the magnificent fountains at Versailles.

In 1681, he returned to Denmark and was appointed professor of Astronomy at Copenhagen University. He was active also as an observer, both at the University Observatory at the Round Tower and in his home, using improved instruments of his own construction. Unfortunately, his observations have not survived: they were lost in the great fire of Copenhagen in 1728. However, a former assistant (and later an astronomer in his own right), Peder Horrebow, loyally described and wrote about Rømer's observations.

Recently selected: Karen Blixen - Bjørn Lomborg - Tycho Brahe

Christian IV of Denmark and Norway (April 12, 1577–February 28, 1648) was the longest reigning Danish monarch with a reign of 60 years. His reign was characterized by wars and rivalry with Sweden as well as his unsuccessful involvement in the Thirty Years' War. Christian is also remembered for founding a number of towns and a large number of buildings, including Børsen, Rundetårn and Holy Trinity Church in Kristianstad. He features in the Danish national play, Elverhøj (The Elf's Hill) and is the central figure in the Danish royal anthem Kong Christian stod ved højen mast.

Christian was the son of Frederick II and Sophia of Mecklenburg. Christian was born at Frederiksborg Palace in 1577, and succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (April 4, 1588), attaining his majority on August 17, 1596. ...

Recently selected: Ole Rømer - Karen Blixen - Bjørn Lomborg

Christian IV of Denmark and Norway (April 12, 1577–February 28, 1648) was the longest reigning Danish monarch with a reign of 60 years. His reign was characterized by wars and rivalry with Sweden as well as his unsuccessful involvement in the Thirty Years' War. Christian is also remembered for founding a number of towns and a large number of buildings, including Børsen, Rundetårn and Holy Trinity Church in Kristianstad. He features in the Danish national play, Elverhøj (The Elf's Hill) and is the central figure in the Danish royal anthem Kong Christian stod ved højen mast.

Christian was the son of Frederick II and Sophia of Mecklenburg. Christian was born at Frederiksborg Palace in 1577, and succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (April 4, 1588), attaining his majority on August 17, 1596. ...

Recently selected: Ole Rømer - Karen Blixen - Bjørn Lomborg

Carl August Nielsen (June 9, 1865, Sortelung – October 3, 1931, Copenhagen) was a conductor, violinist, and the most internationally known composer from Denmark. He is especially admired for his six symphonies and his concertos for violin, flute and clarinet.

Nielsen was born one of twelve children in a poor peasant family in Sortelung, not far from the city of Odense. His father was a housepainter and amateur musician. Carl first discovered music by experimenting with the different sounds and pitches he heard when striking the logs in a pile of firewood behind his home. His family was relatively poor, but he was still able to learn the violin and piano as a child.

He also learned how to play brass instruments, which led to a job as a bugler in the 16th Battalion at nearby Odense. He later studied violin and music theory at the Copenhagen Conservatory, but never took formal lessons in composition. Nonetheless, he began to compose. At first, he did not gain enough recognition for his works to support him. During the concert which saw the premiere of his first symphony on March 14, 1894 (conducted by Johan Svendsen), Nielsen played in the second violin section. However, the same symphony was a great success when played in Berlin in 1896, and from then his fame grew.

Recently selected: Christian IV of Denmark - Ole Rømer - Karen Blixen