Top Document: Nordic FAQ - 5 of 7 - ICELAND Previous Document: 5.2 General information Next Document: 5.4 Main tourist attractions See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge 5.3.1 A chronology of important dates ca. 800 Irish explorers discover Iceland. 874 Iceland receives its first inhabitants from Norway (prior to that, some Celtic colonies had existed in Iceland) as Ing�lfr Arnarson arrives in Reykjav�k. 930 The Icelandic parliament, "Althing", had its first meeting. The Al�ing is the oldest parliamentary system still operating in Europe. 985 Eir�kr (Eric) the Red discovers and settles in Greenland. 1000 Christianity adopted as the new religion. Leifr Er�ksson ('Leif The lucky') discovers North America and names it V�nland. 1120-1230 The old Scandinavian sagas were written down in Iceland. Snorri Sturluson, a nobleman, historian and poet, writes (or is believed to have written) the Prose Edda and the Heimskringla 1262 Weakened by internal struggles, Iceland becomes under Norwegian rule, maintaining, however, a large autonomy. The end of the age of Sturlungs. 1387 Norway, and with it Iceland, becomes united to Denmark. 1400's-1700's Pestilence, commercial exploitation, and natural catastrophes nearly wiped out the Icelandic nation; by the late 18th century its number had dropped to less than 40,000. A revival began in the 19th century. 1536 Iceland becomes Lutheran. The Bible is translated into Icelandic in 1584. 1783-86 The worst volcanic eruptions in the history of Iceland. Grass was burned from large areas, 3/4 of cattle starved to death and likewise, 1/4 of Iceland's inhabitants died of starvation. 1786 Reykjav�k received trade rights. 1800 The Althing meetings discontinued by the Danish king. 1843 With the awakening of Icelandic nationalism, the Al�ing is re-established as a consultative body. 1874 Iceland gets a constitution of its own. 1904 Home rule under Denmark. 1918 Denmark recognizes Iceland as a sovereign state, but Iceland remains united with Denmark. 1940 When Denmark falls to the Nazis, Iceland is occupied by British troops to prevent a German attack. 1941 U.S forces take over defence of Iceland. 1944 Iceland declares full independence at �ingvellir. 1946 Iceland joins the United Nations. 1949 Iceland joins the NATO after a long dispute, and in 1951 reluctantly allows the U.S to maintain a naval base at Keflav�k in return for U.S defense of Iceland. 1963 An underwater volcanic eruption creates a new island, named Surtsey, on the Icelandic coast. 1973 The volcano Helgafell erupted on the island of Heimaey, destroying 1/4 of the houses of Vestmanneyjar, one of Iceland's busiest fishing harbours. The rest was dug out of the ashes and most people moved back. 1975 Fishery limits extended to 200 miles. "Cod war" with Britain. 1980 Vigd�s Finnbogad�ttir becomes the first woman ever to be democratically elected President of a Republic. She has been re-elected in 1984, 1988, and 1992. 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev Summit Meeting held in H�f�i house, Reykjav�k 5.3.2 Greenland Greenland is said to have been discovered by a man called Gunnbj�rn whose ship had gone off course. It was, however, Eir�kr �orvaldsson (a.k.a Eric the Red) who explored and named the island, and ruled the first colony of settlers. He who was born in Norway in the mid-10th century, but went to Iceland as a child after his father was banished from Norway. A violent man as he was, Eir�kr himself was banished from Iceland, and set forth on an expedition westward from Iceland. In 981 he got to Greenland (a name he gave to encourage settlers to go there), and spent the next three years exploring it. After that he returned to Iceland and led an expedition of 25 ships to settle (c.985) in southwestern Greenland. This settlement survived until the late 15th century. Eir�kr himself settled at Brattahli� (Tunigdliarfik) in Greenland, where he died sometime after the year 1000. The most important written sources recounting the discovery and settlement of Greenland are Ari �orgilsson's �slendingab�k and Land�mab�k. There are also two colourful sagas, Gr�nlendinga Saga (The Saga of the Greenlanders) and Eir�ks saga rau�a (The Saga of Eric the Red), but these were composed only in the early 13th century and are often fanciful and contradict each other in places. Greenland's attraction was that it had better pasture for sheep, goats and cows than Iceland, where the soil had already become poor after about a century of heavy exploitation. Farmers had never lived there, the climate was probably a bit milder than today, and some of the fertile lowlands which now have have disappeared under sea were above surface at that time. There was probably also quite a lot of driftwood in Greenland at that time. Catch was plenty in the sea, and there were reindeer, bears and birds to hunt on land. Pelts of polar bears and arctic foxes, whalebone and walrus tusks were used to pay for the essential imports, such as metal, timber and grain, as well as luxury goods. But the colony was vulnerable if there were epidemics among animals or people or even small climactic changes, and it died out sometime in the 15th century -- the exact reason isn't known. In 1712, centuries after the links between Greenland and the rest of the world had been broken, the king of Denmark-Norway sent an expedition to Greenland with pastor Hans Egede to nurture the Christian faith among the Viking descendants, but none had survived. The Eskimos had long since penetrated to the southernmost point of the country, and these were the Greenlanders Egede met. 5.3.3 Vinland; L'Anse aux Meadows According to the sagas, Vinland was discovered when ships went off course during one of the long journeys from Iceland or Norway to Greenland. The Saga of the Greenlanders attributes the first sighting of America to Bjarni Herj�lfsson who had emigrated with Eir�kr the Red to Greenland, although Bjarni didn't actually set foot on Vinland; the Saga of Eir�kr the Red, on the other hand, says that the discovery was made by Leifr the Lucky, Eir�kr's son. Leifur grew up in Greenland but in ca. 999 he visited Norway, where he was converted to Christianity. According to one saga, he was then commissioned by King Olaf I to convert the Greenlanders to Christianity, but he was blown off course, missed Greenland, and reached North America (this story, however, is now known to be fiction, made by up by an Icelandic priest called Gunnlaugr in the 13th century). The other, more probable version of the story describes Leifur sailing on a planned voyage to lands to the west of Greenland that had been sighted 15 years earlier by Bjarni. He landed at places called Helluland and Markland and wintered at Vinland, and returned back to Greenland. After Leifr's journey an expedition led by �orfinnr Karlsefni, a wealthy Icelandic trader, returned to settle V�nland in c.1010 and wintered there. The Scandinavians, both men and women, first traded but then fought with the native Skr�lings. The descriptions of Skr�ling culture in the sagas are consistent with American Indian life. Because of Skr�ling attacks, the settlement was abandoned after three winters. There is some disagreement on where exactly the places visited by Leifr were. Vinland (Vine Land) was presumably Newfoundland, Markland (Wood Land) Labrador Island and Helluland (Flat Rock Land) Baffin Island. The only firm evidence of Scandinavian presence in North America has been found in Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows, where excavations begun in 1961 have revealed the remains of eight turf-walled houses, one of which was a longhouse 22 m by 15 m (72 ft by 50 ft) containing five rooms including a "great hall," and a smithy, where bog iron was smelted. Several of the houses had stone ember pits identical with those found in Norse houses in Greenland. Among the artifacts unearthed was a soapstone spindle whorl similar to those discovered in Norse ruins in Greenland, Iceland, and Scandinavia; this find suggests that women as well as men were present at the site, which is also consistent with the sagas. Other artifacts point to a brief, much earlier occupation of the site by Maritime Archaic Indians and a later occupation by Dorset Eskimo. L'Anse aux Meadows may have been the place of �orfinnr's settlement. The site was a good one for a pioneer community; the soil was fertile, there was plenty of fish and game, the climate was mild and there was iron ore available, but the area wasn't previously uninhabited; the local Indians seem to have made long-lasting settlements impossible. The journeys to Vinland continued into the Middle Ages, but apparently only to obtain raw materials for the Greenland colony. Some scholars have suggested that L'Anse aux Meadows was a transit station to journeys further south, but apart from a Norwegian coin from King Olaf Kyrre's reign (1066-80) found on an Indian settlement in the state of Maine, there are no traces early Scandinavian presence further south. The various rune stones, such as the Kensington Stone, and other similar V�king objects 'found' in North America are all faked. Similarly, the New World portions of Yale University's Vinland map, a world map supposedly made about 1440 which includes Vinland and Greenland, was in 1974 revealed as a modern forgery. User Contributions:Top Document: Nordic FAQ - 5 of 7 - ICELAND Previous Document: 5.2 General information Next Document: 5.4 Main tourist attractions Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: jmo@lysator.liu.se (SCN Faq-maintainer)
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