History of Greenland

The history of Greenland, the world's largest island, is the history of life under extreme Arctic conditions: an ice cap covers about 95 percent of the island, largely restricting human activity to the coasts. Greenland was unknown to Europeans until the 10th century, when Icelandic and Norwegian Vikings discovered it. Before this discovery, it had been inhabited for a long time by Arctic peoples, although it was apparently unpopulated at the time when the Vikings arrived; the direct ancestors of the modern Inuit Greenlanders did not arrive until around 1200 AD from the northwest. The Norse settlements along the south-west coast eventually disappeared after about 450 years. The Inuit survived and developed a society to fit the increasingly forbidding climate (see Little Ice Age) and were the only people to inhabit the island for several hundred years. Denmark-Norway nonetheless claimed the territory, and, after several centuries of no contact between the Norse Greenlanders and the Scandinavian motherland, it was feared that the Greenlanders had lapsed back into paganism; so, a missionary expedition was sent out to reinstate Christianity in 1721. However, since none of the lost Norse Greenlanders was found, Denmark-Norway instead proceeded to baptize the local Inuit Greenlanders and develop trading colonies along the coast as part of its aspirations as a colonial power. Colonial privileges were retained, such as trade monopoly.

During World War II, Greenland became effectively detached, socially and economically, from Denmark and more connected to the United States and Canada. After WW2, control was returned to Denmark, and, in 1953, the colonial status was transformed into that of an overseas Amt (county). Although Greenland is still a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, it has enjoyed home rule since 1979. In 1985, the island became the only territory to leave the European Union, which it had joined as a part of Denmark in 1973.