President Trump isn’t the first U.S. politician to be interested in Greenland — not by a long shot.

From the Reconstruction era to the Cold War, multiple administrations have tried (and failed) to acquire the Arctic island.

Here’s what happened the last three times the U.S. tried to acquire Greenland.

Though the president-elect's rhetoric is unusual, for over a century a succession of US presidents have tried to gain control of Greenland.

This is the article we published then, with minor updates. On March 30, 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and Russian envoy Baron Edouard de Stoeckl signed the Treaty of Cession.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s ‘Our New Neighbors at Ponkapog’ The possibility of the United States acquiring Greenland has been kicking around Washington for so long that William Seward had the ...

January 8, 2025 at 5:06 p.m. ·9 min read On March 30, 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and Russian envoy Baron Edouard de Stoeckl signed the Treaty of Cession. With a stroke of a pen, ...