Estonian Americans

The first recorded arrival of immigrants from Estonia (then part of Sweden) to what is now the United States occurred already in 1627 in the colony of New Sweden along the Delaware River. Emigration from Estonia started on a larger scale in the late 19th century, when Estonia was part of the former Russian Empire, and continued until the mid-20th century. However, it is difficult to estimate the number of Estonian-Americans before 1920, since they were often referred to as "Russians" in the national censuses. The beginnings of industrialization and commercial agriculture in the Russian Empire transformed many Estonian farmers into migrants. The pressures of industrialization drove numerous Estonian farmers to emigrate to the United States until Estonia became an independent country in 1918, at the end of World War I. During World War II, Estonia was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940–1941, and by Nazi Germany in 1941–1944. In 1944, in the face of the country being re-occupied by the Soviet Red Army, 80,000 people fled from Estonia by sea to Germany and Sweden, becoming war refugees and later, expatriates. Some thousand of them moved on from there and settled in the United States. After the war's end, these displaced persons were allowed to immigrate to the United States and to apply for citizenship. In 1948, the Displaced Persons Act from U.S. Congress stipulated that 40% of the available visas go to “Baltic” people (Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians). This act and its 1950 revision allowed 11,000 Estonians into the United States between 1948 and 1952. Some of these refugees and their descendants started returning to Estonia at the end of the 1980s. ==Notable people==