Kearney Public Library and UNK-History Department welcome you to the History Brown Bag lunch series Wednesday, April 12 from noon-1:00 pm. Mary Beth Ailes will present "Danish and English Competition in the North Atlantic during the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries"
Beginning in the sixteenth century, the English crown sponsored many voyages of exploration in the north Atlantic. During these expeditions, English mariners claimed control over lands throughout the region. As English political and economic claims expanded, Danish rulers increasingly became worried as they believed they had sovereign rights over the entire region based upon Scandinavian settlement of the North Atlantic during the Viking age. To make real their claims in the north Atlantic, Danish monarchs engaged in diplomacy with the English and sent several voyages to assert control over Greenland. This talk explores diplomatic tensions between England and Denmark, and the Danish crown’s attempts to exert sovereignty over the north Atlantic.
Mary Beth Ailes is Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Her research specialties are Scandinavia, the British Isles, military history, diplomatic history, and social history. She has published several articles and two monographs that investigate connections between warfare and societal developments during the early modern period. Her publications include Military Migration and State Formation: The British Military Community in Seventeenth-Century Sweden (University of Nebraska Press, 2002) and Courage and Grief: Women and Sweden’s Thirty Years’ War (University of Nebraska Press, 2018).
This program is free and open to the public so bring your lunch and learn! This collaborative program is presented by UNK-History Department, and the Kearney Public Library. Mark your calendars for this ongoing series on May 10.