Greenland Operations: “Icecap” 1965 US Army The Big Picture TV-664 (D)

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“U.S. RESEARCH AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS ON GREENLAND ICECAP, WITH FOCUS ON WORK OF ARMED FORCES SINCE 1950 – STRESS ON MILITARY AND POLICING IMPORTANCE OF AREA.”

NEW VERSION with improved video & sound:

Public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

Greenland (Kalaallisut: Kalaallit Nunaat, “Land of the Kalaallit”, Danish: Grønland) is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and later Denmark) for more than a millennium. In 2008, the people of Greenland supported a referendum on greater autonomy by 75%. Greenland is, by area, the world’s largest island. With a population of 56,749 (2012 estimate), it is the least densely populated dependency or country in the world.

Greenland has been inhabited, though not continuously, by Arctic peoples via Canada for 4,500 to 5,000 years. In the 10th century, Norsemen settled on the uninhabited southern part of Greenland. In the 13th century, the Inuit arrived, and in the late 15th century, the Norse colonies disappeared. In the early 18th century, contact between Scandinavia and Greenland was re-established and Denmark established rule over Greenland.

Greenland became a Danish colony in 1814 after being under the rule of Denmark-Norway for centuries. With the Constitution of Denmark of 1953, Greenland became part of the Danish Realm in a relationship known in Danish as Rigsfællesskabet (Commonwealth of the Realm). In 1979, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, and in 2008, Greenland voted to transfer more power from the Danish royal government to the local Greenlandic government. This became effective the following year on June 21, 2009, with the Danish royal government in charge of foreign affairs, security (defence-police-justice), and financial policy, and providing a subsidy of DKK 3.4 billion. This subsidy will be gradually diminishing over time as Greenland’s own economy is expected to become stronger due to income from resource extraction…

In prehistoric times, Greenland was home to several successive Paleo-Eskimo cultures known primarily through archaeological findings. The earliest entry of the Paleo-Eskimo into Greenland is thought to have occurred about 2500 BC…

From 986 AD, Greenland’s west coast was colonized by Icelanders and Norwegians in two settlements on fjords near the southwestern-most tip of the island. They shared the island with the late Dorset culture inhabitants who occupied the northern and western parts, and later with the Thule culture arriving from the north. Norse Greenlanders submitted to Norwegian rule in the 13th century, and the kingdom of Norway entered into a personal union with Denmark in 1380, and from 1397 was a part of the Kalmar Union…