In addition, missionaries belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints converted many Danes who moved to Utah.

The expedition was made up of two small Danish ships Enhiørningen and Lamprenen, with 64 sailors who were Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and Germans.

The earliest documented Danish immigrants to the new world, Jan Jansen and his wife Engeltje, along with their children, arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1636.

[5] More than a century after Christian IV's expedition came explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681–1741), a Dane who was working for the Russian empire.

In 1728, he documented the narrow body of water that separated North America and Asia, which was later named the Bering Sea in his honor.

Among them were Hans Christian Febiger (1749–1796), one of George Washington's most trusted officers during the American Revolution, Charles Zanco (1808–1836) who died at the Alamo in March 1836 in the struggle for Texan independence, and Peter Lassen (1800–1859), a blacksmith from Copenhagen who led a group of adventurers from Missouri to California in 1839.

It caused a high rate of poverty and ultimately resulted in a significant and rapid increase in Danish migration to other countries.

According to the 2000 US Census Bureau, 33,400 people spoke Danish at home; that figure was down to 29,467 five years later (2005 American Community Survey), a decrease of about 11.8%.

Exceptions exist, of course; primary among these are a rich heritage of folklore, an affinity to art, and regional traditions involving food and feast days.

Danish "folk schools," which focused more on learning outcomes than grades or diplomas, were operated primarily between the 1870s and 1930s in heavily Danish communities such as Racine, Wisconsin, Elk Horn, Iowa; Ashland, Michigan; West Denmark, Wisconsin; Nysted, Nebraska; Tyler, Minnesota; Viborg, South Dakota; Kenmare, North Dakota; and Solvang, California.

[14] The one major still-operating historically Danish American college is Grand View University, founded in 1896 in Des Moines, Iowa.

Another institution, Dana College in Blair, Nebraska, operated from 1884 until 2010, but closed its doors in July 2010 due to failing enrollment.

The archive contains the country's largest and broadest collection of materials relating to the life experience, cultural heritage and vital contributions to North America of the people of Danish extraction.

[citation needed] In addition, a large number of Danish Americans belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[citation needed] Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin have the largest concentrations of non-Mormon Danish Americans.

[citation needed] Smaller but significant numbers of Danish Americans have also become Methodists, Baptists, Roman Catholics, and Seventh-day Adventists.

[8] Two cities, Chicago and Racine, Wisconsin, claim to be the home to the largest group of Danish Americans in the United States.

During the early days of Hollywood film making, numerous Danes and children of Danish emigrants directed, or acted on the silver screen, to include: Ann Forrest, Anders Randolf, Bodil Rosing, Benjamin Christensen, Carl Brisson, Carl Gerard, Ellen Corby, Gale Sondergaard, Gwili Andre, James Cruze, Janet Leigh, Colleen Gray, Jean Hersholt, Johannes Poulsen, Karl Dane, Lillie Hayward, Max Ree (1931 Oscar), Otto Mathiesen, Robert Andersen, Seena Owen, Svend Gade, Tambi Larsen, Torben Meyer, Winna Winfred and William Orlamond.

Among the few Danes who have moved to the United States to pursue careers in Hollywood is Connie Inge-Lise Nielsen, who was born in Denmark and today lives in Sausalito, California.

Likewise, actress Scarlett Johansson was also born to a Danish father who immigrated to New York City and married an American woman.

Christian Febiger was an American Revolutionary War commander, born on Fyn, he became a confidante of General George Washington and was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati.

After more service as a U.S. marshal, and at the outset of World War I, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army but was rejected due to his age Robert A. Arensen, FM1, USN, lost his life on December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor when the U.S.S.

Dale M. Hansen, Pvt., USMC, earned his nation's highest military decoration — the Medal of Honor — for his outstanding heroism on May 7, 1945, in the fight for Hill 60 on Okinawa.

William S. Knudsen, an emigrant from Copenhagen, Denmark, and leading executive in the automobile industry, accepted President Franklin Roosevelt's urging to manage the task of overseeing America's vast wartime military armament and supply production.

After paying women for their services, he would kidnap, torture, and rape them, further binding and flying them to his cabin in the Knik River Valley in his private airplane.

In April 1991, Lundin strangled his mother to death in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, and, with the help of his father, he buried her body on a Cape Hatteras beach, where it was later found.

Anderson was born Ivan Dahl von Teler to a wealthy Danish family circa 1880, graduated from the universities of Heidelberg and Uppsala, and emigrated to the United States around the start of the 20th century.

After even more robberies, Anderson and Chapman were finally captured, tried, and sentenced to 25 years in prison, to be served at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

In Indiana he killed a key prosecution witness from Chapman's trial and drew further attention by passing poor-quality counterfeit currency in Michigan.

Anderson's remarkable criminal infamy included burglary, armed robbery, boot-legging, prison escape, counterfeiting, and murder.