THREAD 1: On this day 250 years ago the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway became the first state in the world to formally abolish any and all forms of censorship through a Press Freedom Declaration of 14. september (effectuating a cabinet order of 4. september).

2/ The man responsible for detonating this bomb in one of Europe´s most absolutist states was the German Physician John Friedrich Struensee who took advantage of King Christian VII´s insanity to become the de-facto ruler of the realm.

3/ The abolishment of censorship was only the opening salvo of Struensee´s Englightenment crusade which also abolished torture and morality laws including the punishment of sex outside marriage (Struensee also had an affair with queen Carolina Mathilde).

4/ Alas for Struensee the Danish people used their new won fpress freedom to attack this foreign, radical and hedonistic usurper, and in 1771 Struensee had to issue a new law in order to curb the worst excesses of the troll-army he himself had unleashed.

5/ By January 1772 the game was up. In a coup Struensee was arrested and later brutally executed. The new regime severely restricted press freedom in 1773, and in a move all to familiar in our digital age they clamped down on fake news.

For more on how the kingdoms of Denmark-Norway and Sweden - for a brief period - became traiblazers in terms of press freedom, listen to episode 31 of @CAPD_freespeech https://www.freespeechhistory.com/2019/08/22/episode-30-northern-lights-the-scandinavian-breakthrough/