As my username here suggests I am originally from Denmark. I was born and raised there and lived there till I was 20 years of age, and subsequently went back and forth quite a lot between the USA and Denmark, between ages 20 and 30.
One of the stranger historic events that I have witnessed happened when I was spending the summer in Denmark in 1985. I just finished at University earlier that spring, and was actually looking forward to spending an entire summer not working.
During the weekend of July 20th, 1985 I was staying at my auntie's house in the city of Copenhagen, because I was hanging out with friends during the weekend, and was then planning to spend the first few days of the week pursuing one of my favorite hobbies of the time (and to this day), which was stamp collecting. That meant visiting some favorites among the numerous stamp shops that used to be around Copenhagen 40 years ago.
In spite of it being summer holidays, I actually managed to drag my ass out of bed relatively early, packed up my stuff and headed for one of my favorite stamp collector shops not far from my aunts house, arriving shortly after their opening time at 10:00 AM.
I'd been there maybe 15 minutes when there was what I could only describe as an intense shockwave immediately followed by a deep roaring boom, powerful enough that several panes of glass in the apartment building opposite the stamp burst out and landed in the street below; and it felt like the whole building shook.
Now, earthquakes are just not something we have in Denmark, so everybody rushed outside and looked up up and down the street but there wasn't really anything visible other than numerous pieces of broken glass from windows that had fallen from above.
Let's keep in mind this was before cell phones and instant news.
And then… less than two or three minutes later… the sirens started up. Followed by seemingly endless numbers of ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, more fire trucks, more police cars heading up the street towards the city center. From our vantage point, it was impossible to see where they were headed due to a 45-degree angle in the street but it was not far away. This went on for the better part of 20 minutes... something BIG had happened.
Archive photo from arkiv.dk
The store owner turned on a portable radio and started channel surfing to see of there were any news updates.
What I had actually been a near-witness to was a terrorist bomb attack at the Northwest Orient Airlines office in Copenhagen, less than 1/4 mile from the stamp shop.
Only minutes later, a second bomb went off at a synagogue elsewhere in Copenhagen.
A few minutes after that, a third bomb attack was intercepted at the Israeli El Al airlines office in Copenhagen, thanks to an observant citizen who noticed someone trying the leave a suitcase by the building. According to multiple eyewitnesses, the man with the suitcase got cold feet, picked up the suitcase, and then carried 35lbs of high explosive for about half a mile through busy streets before tossing the suitcase into a canal, and disappearing onto a ship destined for Sweden before the police could apprehend him.
Miraculously, these attacks resulted in only one death and about 35 injuries, a miracle given that the street was typically filled with pedestrians about as thick as what you can see behind the barriers in the old photo, up above. More significantly, it was the first time in history that a terrorist attack had taken place on Danish soil — Denmark had been regarded as a "safe neutral zone" up until that point.
It left most people in the city realizing that our "safe little Nordic haven" wasn't all that safe, anymore.
I decided to write about this particular event because it was history I experienced from up very close and personal... and while not "world famous," it served as a significant turning point in how a small nation approached security and international visitors.
I am writing this as part of the Silver Bloggers Chronicles initiative, in response to the prompt "A Moment in History."
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!
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Created at 2025.10.27 23:18 PST
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