Danish American Heritage Month – JUNE – more info
About – Like the immigrants of countless other nations, many immigrants from Denmark came to the United States for religious reasons. The Danish immigrants of the 19th century were unique, however, in that they came to North America as part of the first mass influx of the pilgrims of a new religion: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
For centuries, small groups of Danes had visited and lived on the shores of the New World. Danes had joined Dutch expeditions to navigate the Hudson River in the 17th century, and in 1728 the Danish explorer Vitus Bering charted the Alaskan straits that bear his name. The New Amsterdam colony was home to many prominent Danes, including Jonas Bronck, whose land north of Manhattan Island became widely known as Bronck’s, and, eventually, the Bronx. In addition, small numbers of Danes fled the established Dutch Reform Church to join larger, usually German, religious communities on the East Coast.
Americans USA 