Trump came 139 years too late to Greenland

US President Donald Trump is using undocumented ship calls to mock the historical ties between Greenland and Denmark.

“The fact that they (Denmark, ed.) had a ship that docked there (in Greenland, ed.) 500 years ago does not mean that they own the country. We also had many ships that came there,” the president said as recently as January 9.

But what are these ships in Greenland from hundreds of years ago that Donald Trump is talking about?

Trump Jr. impressed by Hans Egede

Norwegian merchants also wanted to make a deal with Greenland, and the Bergen Company sent three ships across the Atlantic in 1721. One ship was turned back by rough weather at Cape Farewell, but the "Haabet" and "Anne Christine" anchored at the Island of Hope in the archipelago near Nuuk on July 3.

The missionary Hans Egede thus arrived in Greenland with two ships 305 years ago - and not, as claimed by Donald Trump, with a single ship 500 years ago. The defining ship call in 1721 dared to be known material in the White House; otherwise the president can simply ask his son, Donald Trump Jr., who in January 2025 in front of the Hans Egede statue in Nuuk explained the true context of the matter:

– So that's the missionary who came here in 1721; super cool stuff, exclaimed an impressed Donald Trump Jr.

Breaking news – in 1861

The very first issue of the oldest newspaper in the Inuit world, Atuagagdliutit, was published on 1 January 1861. The top story, which filled both the front page and the next two pages, was about a naval visit to Nuuk the previous year. Due to heavy pack ice in South Greenland, the American schooner "Nautilus", the British naval ship "Bulldog" and four cargo ships on their way to the cryolite mine in Ivittuut had sought shelter in Nuuk.

The headline was: Umiarssuarnik, aussame 1860me, Nûngmĩtunik. (In Danish: About the ships in the harbor of Nuuk in the summer 1860).

The newspaper did not yet have a photographer attached, but it did have an illustrator: Aron from Kangeq. The renowned artist depicted the intense congestion in the Nuuk harbor in a woodcut that was printed in color.

This made Atuagagdliutit the first newspaper in the world with color pictures in its columns. On board the American ship »Nautilus« were Professor Paul A. Chadbourne and students from Williams College in Massachusetts, who collected botanical and zoological specimens around Nuuk and Maniitsoq.

Donald Trump said last week that American ships came to Greenland 500 years ago in 1526. It will be breaking news all the while that the USA was only founded 250 years ago in 1776. With Hans Egede's arrival in 1721 and the "Nautilus" call in 1860, it will be closer to the truth that Trump came to Greenland 139 years too late.