"The thing that got me was",,👉🏼. The Vikings successfully crossed that dangerous, windy, icy open water in a "wooden boat carrying farm animals" no less, using pretty much only their instincts. It took these modern men with all their high technology, GPS, etc...4 airplanes and 2 helicopters! Lol! That's why I'm in awe of the Vikings, my great ancestors! I'm so proud of them. "Hail to these amazing human beings!" 💪🏼⭐️
Born Danish quarter Swedish with roots in Norway,Italians may well forget the parade every year on May 20 from 1505, the Vikings were in wineland (Nova Scotia today) 500 years before Columbus,a short time before the red Indians kick the vikings out never seen awhite until the Spaniards came further south,rest is story.There have been found a rune stone deep in in Minesota in the Viking language,again 500 year before Columbus,well known to all vikings.A Dane with Viking blood in his veins here...
They didn', You don't have a single proof, if you do, show it to me. The Chinese expedition did not go beyond the Aleutians. Columbus was the first European to arrive and, most importantly, return.
Eirikr Rauði (Erik the Red) never went to Vinland (North America). He is credited for exploring Greenland, but did not join any of the Vinland expeditions. The real discoverer of the route to Vinland was Bjarni Herjolfsson in 986 AD. Leif used his merchant ship and retraced his route.
AHHHH, Interesting vikingscipdotcom. I had never heard of the man(Bjarni Herjolfsson) before now. Very cool,I seem to learn more and more aboutthe Norse daily!!!! Thanks for the comment!!
Yes it's stated very clearly in the Sagas but it doesn't look as if they used them as research material. Eirik was going to go with Leif but fell off his horse on the way to the ship and decided it was a bad omen, and so he stayed at home, where eventually he died.
We do not know the name(s) of the "real" discoverer(s) of Vinland. We do know that Norsemen were mining copper in Michigan, on Lake Superior, 6000 years ago. The mines were huge. They also left behind metal tools and evidence of smelting the copper into ingots. Those very same ingots were found in a sunken ship near current day Turkey; it was total boatload of copper ingots. Anatolia is one of the main regions where the Norsemen traded/sold the copper. (Response to an Old Post I Know...)
@@VidarrKerr You may have the Phoenician Uluburun ship wreck in mind, which was loaded with 10 tons (metric) of copper ingots, each weighing some 30 kg. However, we don't know where this copper cargo was sourced. The Phoenicians may have reached the Americas, but the final evidence isn't quite there yet. The Phoenicians regarded trade routes as business secrets. It's more likely that copper in Michigan was mined by native tribes. (Source: Fawcett, Nigel and J.C. Zietsman, "Uluburun - The Discovery and Excavation of the World’s Oldest Known Shipwreck,” Akroterion, Vol. 46, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2001, pp 5-20)
Isotopic analysis' of the oxhide copper ingots in the Uluburun shipwreck shows that most of them came from Cyprus, and some from nearby Athens. Read chapter 3: upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2117/101760/ox-hide%20damqatum.pdf
It took the Vikings about 4 to 5 days to sail to Iceland, about 3 days to sail thence to Greenland and another 3 days to sail to America. Three short hops. Columbus took the long way across the Atlantic and it took him 3 months.
and another month or so before he figured out where he wasn't... turns out the world was twice as big as ol' columbo calculated. Fortunate for he and his crew there were 2 whole continents about where he expected Japan and China to be; quite unfortunate for the Arawaks, Tainos, Timacuans Aztecs, Incans etc...
1) Interesting point was about the speed of the Viking ships 2) the distance via the northern way is about half of what Columbus must have sailed 3) they said something about sailing against the wind - how did the Santa Maria and other Columbus' ships compare? For sure, the ease of the northern way suggests that the population of North America from Europe had happened much earlier that the currently accepted theory. See the Solutreans, Clovis... in any way, pondering about the distant past makes my mind wander far, far away...
It took a little longer. A Knarr (the ship most likely used for deep ocean sailing) on a good day can sail 75 miles. Given it was a square-rigged ship it could not sail close to the wind and this means a lot of tacking. Tacking increased the distance sailed to cover any given straight line distance. If the winds and currents were contrary the ship would be slower.
@@Alarix246 I believe at least some of Columbus' ships were Caravels. These ships could sail about 40 degrees closer to the wind than a Norse ship. So, less tacking for any given measured distance to be covered.
@@prosequence2536 Yes, very unfortunate for the natives. I am glad that the Vikings did not make genocide. That would have been hard on my conscience, they are my ancestors on my father's side.
Very interesting video. BUT....... Being a Dane I am annoyed by the fact, that Roskilde is not placed where it is shown on the map in this video!!! There lies instead the city of Viborg!!! Roskilde is actually on the island of Seeland, which lies under the "K" in "Denmark". The deep fjord in the northern part of Seeland is Roskilde Fjord, and Roskilde is at the bottom of that fjord. There ....... the mistake is corrected. :-)
Max McKee Me too. A real sense of history in that place, and great to see where parts of Yorkshire got their patterns for boatbuilding. Pity this programme got the map location wrong though. Les in UK
Very interesting documentary ! I would like to be that lucky to follow the Erik and Leif's itineraries in that part of the world. Min. 26:46 - I appreciate the Josh Bernstein's gesture by removing his hat in the...church. Josh, being a Jew, that's a nice sample of respect for our spiritual place.
Of course they could. Tim Severin and his crew also showed you can do it in a Curragh made of leather, in his 1977-78 Brendan voyage, he made a replica and actually sailed it across the North Atlantic himself.
At 26:45 the lady says people can get married in the church, and she looks at the guy in a dreamy way, like she'd like to marry him right there and then.
Harald Blåtann only ruled the southern parts of Norway, witch was originaly danish territory, from before Norway was a country. Harald Gråfell, brother of Håkon den Gode, both children of Harald Hårfagre, fought over Norway. Harald Gråfell got help from the danes, and Harald Blåtann. After several defeats, Harald Gråfell became king of Norway, when Håkon the Good got wounded in one of the battles, and later died. Harald Blåtann got the southern parts of Norway in return for his help.
Scandinavians stayed longer than two or three years on Newfoundland, a small Norwegian coin from between 1065 and 1080 has been found there, meaning that it has been dropped at the earliest in 1065. IE more than 2 or 3 years after the initial settlement.
@@PalleRasmussen I tell this because there is no evidence of a Viking presence in America, not a single one but I would admit that remains of a Viking ship could arrive in America just like a bottle in the sea, even that coin, which American experts identified as English in Meadows, could have arrived in that shipwreck, that an Indian found it and took it as a souvenir.
@@jorgeo4483 why invent such an unlikely and convoluted story, when we have written evidence of the Norse discovering North America, and actual Viking finds in Le Anse Aux Meadows? That is weird, so what is your motivation for this fancy faery tale?
@@PalleRasmussen I am Spanish, like Christopher Columbus, who was not Italian and as a historian I cannot stand history being distorted. Let's go in parts: 1- Historically there are 5 continents, the inhabited ones, not 7, not 6, Europe, Asia, America, Africa and Oceania. 2- The Vikings, as you imagine them culturally, appear in VIII AD and disappear in XI AD. 3- What you see in Le Anse Aux Meadows are constructions of Basque whalers, from the 13th century, who were unaware that this was a continent. There's nothing Viking there, for God's sake... there's a Christian church. In a BBC documentary in which several mayors of the area declare that they invented the Viking theory to have Nordic tourism. The coins found were English. 4- The Vikings did not know how to write, you have no evidence of anything, you have the sagas, written from the 12th century onwards, many of them by authors who were not even Nordic and many are copies of chivalry stories from southern Europe.
while the knorr was the usual trading, heavy transport ship, it is not true that longships were not able to sail open ocean. they weren't designed to carry the heavier loads, like the knorrs, but they were definitely sea worthy. in fact, replica longships have been sailed around the world, circumnavigation, a number of times.
I like the fact that this show points out that the Vikings used a different kind of ship to make their long sea voyages. In the case of both the Newfoundland colony and the Greenland settlement, documented conflict with native Americans played a role in both their demise. While the Mini Ice Age had a lot to do with the failure of the Greenland settlement, Eskimos also began to move back into the area just as things were deteriorating, adding both competition and conflict to the equation.
there is a large circular stone with markings on it in Yarmouth NS. Suggesting vikings. My Grandmother showed it to me about 40 years ago. It is housed there in the museum I think...
In the Video They say that Vikings would wan't to stay near the coast. This would actualy be the most dangerous thing a anciant sailer could do, because the reefs and rocks near the coast could tear the bottom of a viking ship.
Though the skeptics don’t believe it, the Vikings made it as far inland as Heavener, Oklahoma. Where they carved a huge 11 ft tall runestone . They think it’s fake but it’s real, I visit the stone several times a year.
Maltha, like you previously mentioned, the word Viking has been open to different interpretations, meanings. The most popular one is that came from the Norse Rus tribe in modern-day Ukraine, who supposedly lived near the Vik River, "Viking" also meant a certain type of raider, which could also mean they were explorers, traders, like Eric the Red who was banished twice for outlawry, once from Norway to Iceland to settle a blood feud killing a neighbor in a argument, and several years later from Iceland for 3 years where he navigating what became the Western Settlement near Thule in modern Greenland. His name from his fiery temper and his bright red hair, and he also was fiercely devout pagan in old Norse religion whose wife was one of the first Viking converts to Christianity who built one of the first churches in Greenland, as well as his son, Lief Ericson. Their were also numerous Scandinavian Norse tribes, particularly various Danish and Norwegian factions, who feuded amongst themselves as well as raiding English monasteries or settling and assimilating into cultures of countries they raided, like Rollo the Langer("the tall one" in Old Norse) Normans with Charles IV in 909 C.E. The negative connotations behind Vikings as cruel, merciless raiders isn't entirely untrue historically, the raid at Lindisfarne monastery in 793 is good example, and in a sense, all throughout history from Phoenicians, Carthaginians, to ancient Greek city states establishing colonies throughout Mediterranean, sometimes trading or exploring led to raiding, conquering, or eliminating indigenous natives whether that was initially intended or not. Both the Eric the Red and Vinland Sagas use disparaging words like "skraeling" to describe Inuits, pre-Columbian Native American tribes they had conflicts occasionally in L'anse Aux Meadows in modern Nova Scotia. So, the image of the Viking as being a raider who engaged or provoked battles, or offered themselves as mercenaries to Christian kings isn't as unfounded as it may seem, although certainly not in the overblown context it's been portrayed by popular culture centuries. Also, the Vikings were keen conquerors whose favorite target was their first, England, they swallowed up large sections of English territory that had been previously held by Anglo-Saxons in Danelaw, York c. 831, Orkneys, Edinburgh, Glascow, Dublin, Belfast, all started primarily as Norse trading ports. Canute the Great finally completed the conquest of England outright in 1016. Canute, FWIW, is probably the greatest of all Viking kings in that he'd acquired a huge North Sea empire by the time he died and, along with Harold Hardrada and William the Conqueror, who had Viking ancestry, are some of history's greatest self-made men whether rising from humble origins, or perceived social outcasts, or overcoming harsh circumstances being initially exiled from homelands, forced to wonder almost as soldiers of fortune, and that's something even as an objective historian, who's job is to carefully discern all possible facets of any particular periods, you have to admire.
David Roberts Regarding your "most popular" origin of the name Viking, never heard of that theory, and it isnt mentioned in any of my academical books covering the Viking Age, nor can it be found on Wikipedia (under Vikings). If anything, the most popular theory conecting the word Viking to a spesific place, would be the Oslo Fjord, which was called "Viken" in the Viking Age. Allthough this theory have many faults, and by no means are stated as a fact. Beside, the word is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon poem, Widsith. But I would be very interested to read more about the theory you presented, do you have any good sources on the matter? If you do, please share them :)
I'm sorry to burst your little bubble, but Denmark is in fact Scandinavian. Scandinavia officially consists of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Arguing against that, is like saying that Germany is not a part of Europe.
Likewise, the Polynesians moved about their watery island dotted homeland. They used the stars for navigation. They could use the direction of waves to guide them directly to islands a thousand miles distant. The leader, usually an elder man would squat on the deck allowing his scrotum to touch the deck. This delicate contact of man with the powerful sea could lead the ship from island to island. Modern day descendant think nothing of sailing from one Polynesian island to another over three days and nights distant to buy chewing gum from a trading post.
in many shows credits there is a mention of who provided the wardrobe. I wonder if Longwalk Out fitters inc. or whoever insists he wear the satchel as a complete set. maybe it doubles as a flotation device. never takes anything out or puts anything in... the satchel is the consciousness while the wearer to the satchel is as a sock. No, maybe not a complete tool but definitely a utensil. bringing back the fanny pack is like bringing back pawgs, the jerry curl, and those huge puffy neon pants m.c. hammer and his back up dancers wore
My statement is based on 3 Things. 1: There were far more than 400 Viking to traveled to Vinland. Travel to and from the new world lasted about 400 years. 2: The Vikings themself never sought to fight the Natives, rather to make peace and trade with them. And if Conlfict did arose, they were ordered to fight defensivley, since they were keen on getting friends afterwards. 3: Firearms one could hide from, but the armor the Vikings wore always stayed on during a fight, And the shields they wore...
Yes, that is true indeed. the main reason I believe that the raiders came from the west coast is because of the fjords we have in Norway, problaby the only country in the world with fjords. Making seavoyage a must. From new scandinavian stone age archeologists believe we had voyages between north of Denmark and south west of norway in small rafts. We can tell this by the pattern at the flintstones we found here in Norway. This is about 2000-3000 bc. We don`t have natural flintstones in Norway.
Blåtann just ruled a little part of south-east Norway. The rest of Norway was ruled by local chieftains, who was later united as one. Glad you're happy, but i'm beginning to feel sad, for you..
My great grandparents are from Denmark and I have always had a fasination with Viking history and folk tales. We were told our bedstemor and bedstefar are descendents of the Vikings. But it can't be to hard if you are from Denmark, or Norway. So these programs though informative to a point do not mean they are getting their facts right. So if you are truly interested in this/my history and lineage. Please history channel get it right you are all very frustrating and unprofessional if you can't get it right!!!!!
Get it right. Lol. You dont even know what a Viking is. A Viking is an activity, not an ethnicity. A Viking is a raid to plunder, not a people. Vikings were predarors who killed and stole the goods of others instead of making or producing for themselves. So were your ancestors raiders and thieves? Predators? Are you proud of that?
ooh... yes you are! i mixed you up for that George gallows guy and clicked on the wrong channel to see where he was from, but still Iceland is also Scandinavian so was Greenland to but they did not want to be a part of it:/
I have a question. The narrator says at 4:40 that the sail was made exactly like the original. Did they ever find a piece of sail? As far as I know the viking sail is still a mystery?
3:58 glendalough means valley of two lakes in Irish and is about an hours drive from where I live in Wicklow. Anyone have any ideas what this has to do with glendlough
The Little Ice Age started a bit earlier than that. It must have been a very slow "haul ass" by the Norse in Greenland as it took them the better part of a century to leave.
@@EdinburghFive True, It started around 1350, However from what I've read that didn't start leaving until around 1400 and some didn't leave fast enough and then we're unable to leave, .
@Brian Britton Greenland's population carrying capacity was always limited given the finite amount of land that could be used as pasture as well as access to other resources. Trade was of course essential in maintaining the settlements. A few studies I have read indicate after the initial settlement period the population appears to have grown for about 200 years, peaked and stabilized but by 1300 was in slow decline. The Western settlement appears to have been abandoned by about 1350 with the Eastern settlement likely ended no later than 1450. An interesting indication that there was an orderly abandonment and emigration is the fact very few precious objects have been found in the extensive archaeological work, and there are no sacramental objects found. There is likely not a single factor that drove the abandonment of Greenland. It would have been a mix of factors such as: - overgrazing - climate change - disease or the derived effect of disease - lower birth rates - higher mortality rate - trade interruption - availability of better lands back in Iceland. Iceland's population declined by at least 30% from plague. This left opportunities for other people to take up abandoned but better lands. This shuffling of lands amongst the post plaque populations was evident across Europe. If just a few young families, perhaps on net ten a year left to seek better opportunities this would lead to overall population decline to zero over a few hundred years. Of course the emigration was likely in fits and starts. Near the end it may have accelerated a bit because the remaining population was beyond the sustaining point.
That is not remarkable, the hulls deform to adopt the shape of the waves, the complicated thing is to take the boat to those distances without caulking.
OMG! When I heard that, I said, "Hello my brother Viking!" I too am a direct blood descendant of Erik The Red & Leif Eriksson! My family has our bloodline traced all the way back & beautifully bound in our Family History book, It"s not very often I hear of another direct blood relative! Vikings still survive! '
@@jorgeo4483 I did not say that 'THEY' 'wrote' our Family History book. The 'Family Sagas' are known to be historically accurate, they are kept close within the families who keep them. Still, to this day, these 'Family Sagas' are passed on within our family through the oral traditions of our ancestors, word for word, memorized, passed down, keeping our family history, within our family. Obviously, at some point in our family's history, certain family members began to write & chart our family's history in our book which has also been closely passed down within our family over the centuries. This is my family's history kept as faithfully as our oral traditions in the nightly telling of our 'Family Sagas'.
@@bh1264 I am Spanish. I know that explanation perfectly and I have two sisters married to two Swedish brothers, but as a historian it is as if you were telling me that a Bantu in Africa can give you his entire family tree.
English is not her first language. You can tell she's translating everything in her head. How would *you* do explaining a PhD's worth of American history in Icelandic? Prob not as well, I would imagine, on either front. Prove me wrong. (Vitriol doesn't count. 😘)
Rus country was born due to the Vikings by a Varangian called Rurik, that founded the Rurik Dinasty, which ruled the Kievan Rus (and later the Grand Duchy of Moscow and Tsardom of Russia).
Eirik Raude (Eric the Red) was born in western parts of todays Norway, and what is the original country of Norway ( the trade route along the western coast, North-Way). That part was never in posession of Harald Blåtann. As I said, Harald Blåtann only ruled what was original danish territory, "Viken" or the parts around the Oslo-Fjord. This territory was conquered by Harald Hårfagre and anexed by Norway, and later given back to Harald Blåtann by Harald Gråfell as thanks for the war support.
ROFLMAO History Channel FFS. How about placing Roskilde in the right place? Where you show it, is in the other end of the country, near Aalborg. Do your research! And there's nothing new here. The settlement in New Foundland was discovered in the sixties and remains the sole confirmed proof that Scandinavians lived in America for a short period.
AlthoughThis was fun to watch this guy is proof you can do fun stuff asking questions that you can get answers to by looking at insta-gram and facebook posts. He must be living on a trust-fund Or is wealthy of sorts because everything he asked questions to i learned in 3rd grade but he made a vacation about it and somehow got to meet cool people in the process. Cheers to him🤘
according to the sagas, Leif didn't actually discover north America. another Viking, who was blown off course on his way to Greenland, saw it but did not explore it; something which everyone in Greenland teased him about, as it was very un-Viking-like. Leif, then, went to explore. Erik would have gone with him, except he was injured due to an accident, while riding a horse. the Vikings did not stay in America because of constant strife with the Indians, which they called skraelings.
Leif touched down in three spots, Vinland's exact location is disputed because of minimal archeological information. we know he didn't make it to Florida though.
Well, you forgot Iceland, Finland and also possibly Estonia...Depends whether if you're just mentioning the Nordic Council countries or countries that consider themselves Scandinavian (Cause you might wanna add Russia and Greenland (Denmark, but has a flag curiously similar to the Sami flag)) also the one of those countries). So you're both wrong :-P But, hey I'm Norwegian...
Erik the red named Greenland Greenland to make the place more attractive than it really was. It didn't work that well though :-P Also Erik the Red was from Norway
though one could argue that germany belongs to the scandinavians as well since the angles and saxons have extremely much in common with the danes and are only a little bit south of them - and in the end, scandinavians are just descendents of germanic tribes just like it is with the rest of germany and shared the same religion and pretty much the same language
tomurg Actually the "Skælingr" or the natives in the New world was only a minor reason to the demise of the colony that DID last at least 200 years ( if considered a sattelite to the greenland colony)The main reasons were climate, lack of Food, and above all else disease
+outpostflags The Corsairs raided the faroese islands and iceland more than 600 years after the end of the Viking age, and they didnt wipe out anything. They also engaged in blackmarket trading with the faroese.
+Martin Ipsen Anything they didnt have in greenland (beside wood) - the greenlandic settlement was very small, there wasn’t really the human capacity for founding new settlements.
Es posible que los vikingos llegaran a America antes que los españoles,pero ese supuesto viaje vikingo no fue algo importante y significativo para la historia,en cambio,el viaje de los españoles en 1492 fue un acontecimiento muy importante y trascendental para la historia,el 12 de octubre de 1492 es una fecha decisiva y esencial para el modo de vida actual
lol they misplaced Roskilde on the map of Denmark. @Tyler: I believe the saga also tells that leif and his small gang did meet some local native american that they traded some goods with. They traded some goat milk for some blankets wich made the natives sick because they weren't acostumed drinking milk. They thought the viking was trying to poison them and attacked them as far as I remember it.
Harald II was the king of Norway. Son of Eirik Blodøks, aka Eirik I of Norway. And Eirik I was the son of Harald Hårfagre who is considered the founder and first king of Norway/Noreg. We had 33 kings in the viking age, three of them danes. But they were kings only for a short period of time until Norway found a new king to replace them.
History channel is a joke. The show vikings are so unhistorical that words cant describe it, from the heavily modern makeup to the whole dynamics in the society. And here they cant even put Roskilde on the map.
+Dag Ut THE SHOW THE VIKINGS IS NOT TRYING TO BE HISTORICALLY CORRECT!!! I have heard the director/writer say, that he merely took some historical facts and mixed them together and then blended it all with some fantasy. For example: Ragnar Lothbrog did not invade Paris but Reginherus (or "Ragnar", but not Lodbrok) did, Floki is a figure invented for the series, and by the way, no historian is convinced that Ragnar did exist...... at least most of the sagas about him are either fantasy or a compilation of sagas about several viking heroes. The connection between Rollo and Ragnar is invented too. Rollo went pirating and on one of his raids he helped Reginherus in taking Paris. No sagas tell, that Ragnar Lodbrok was in Paris. And there are a thousand more incorrect facts in that series, but again, the aim of the series is not to be historically correct, but merely to tell about vikings. Period.
dfordyr I know. My point however is that ordinary people will believe the show to be historically, you can allready see that on many youtube comments. And one of the reasons is that the show is made for history channel, which many ppl expect to portray history as it was.
If Vikings were historically accurate, they'd be taking saunas instead of tub baths and they wouldn't be merrily having group sex because modern "liberated" sexuality is only possible in a society with birth control and adequate health care. There'd be fewer teeth all the women would have stretch marks and body hair. As such, I don't think "ordinary people" would like it if this show were historically accurate, because North Americans like the idea of photogenic people having lots of sex but are adverse to seeing what the human body actually looks like in a non-erogenous setting such as a typical Northern European sauna!
I have 3 observations, 1. The reason that Francisco Pizarro had such an easy entry to the city of Cusco in Peru, was because the Incas thought that Francisco was their god Wiracocha, which means "the beard one"....who was he? 2..In lake Titicaca the natives are not Incas they are Aymaras (older culture than the incas) their Totoras (ships or canoes) looks similar to the Vikings or Atlantis ships, google it), 3rd I am from Peru, which I have Inca and Spanish blood, but when I went to the dermatologist in Portland Oregon, they asked me if I had Scandinavian in me, I told them not that I know, I asked why?.because roseshea is very common with people of Scandinavian descendant..hummm...just an observation like I said
But it's also common in people of mixed races. My mother in law is Spanish and Mexican, and she has it. But... I am Irish, and Scandanavian and I do as well.
Olaf II Haraldsson, aka Olaf the Holy was king from 1015 - 1028. He's also known as "Norway's Eternal King". upload(DOT)wikimedia(DOT)org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Norway_1020_AD(DOT)png < This is Scandinavia year 1020.
How can a program like this, get something as basic as the placement of Roskilde that wrong??? Its not like its even close..! Its in a hole different part of the country!
in Greenland, where do they get the wood for their campfire? not many trees or even scrub brush there, come to think of it how did vikings live through the winter....what was their fuel at 30 below
