Leif erikson interesting facts
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Leif Erikson (11th century)
Artist's conception of Norse explorer Leif Erikson's ship ©Erikson was an Icelandic explorer and probably the first European visitor to North America, 500 years before Christopher Columbus.
Leif Erikson (also spelled Ericsson, or Eiriksson) was the second of three sons of Erik the Red, who established a settlement in Greenland after he was exiled from Iceland. Leif Erikson's story was recorded in several different sagas, but the accounts they give are so different it is impossible to be certain of the details of his life.
He is thought to have visited Norway in around 1000 where he was converted to Christianity by Olaf I, who sent him back to Greenland to convert the settlers there. In one story, on his voyage to Greenland he sailed off-course and arrived in a place he called 'Vinland', because of the abundant grapes growing there, and the general fertility of the land. In another - the Groenlendinga saga - he heard of a land in the west from an Icelandic trader, and went to find it.
The precise identity of Vinland remains uncertain, with va
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Leif Erikson’s Early Life and Conversion to Christianity
Leif Erikson (spelling variations include Eiriksson, Erikson or Ericson), known as “Leif the Lucky,” was the second of three sons of the famed Norse explorer Erik the Red, who established a settlement in Greenland after being expelled from Iceland around A.D. 980. The date of Leif Erikson’s birth is uncertain, but he is believed to have grown up in Greenland.
According to the 13th-century Icelandic Eiriks saga (or “Saga of Erik the Red”), Erikson sailed from Greenland to Norway around 1000. On the way, he was believed to have stopped in the Hebrides, where he had a son, Thorgils, with Thorgunna, daughter of a local chief. In Norway, King Olaf I Tryggvason converted Erikson to Christianity, and a year later sent him back to Greenland with a commission to spread the faith among the settlers there.
Did you know? After Leif Erikson returned to Greenland, his brother Thorvald led another Viking expedition to Vinland, but all future efforts to settle in the region failed due to bitter clashes between the Norsemen and t
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The Ages of
ExplorationIntroduction
Nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus crossed the ocean blue, a Norse Viking by the name of Leif Eriksson landed on the North American continent. Eriksson is believed to be the first European to have landed on and established a settlement in North America around 1000 CE. Today, we still ask ourselves, “Who really discovered America?”Biography
Early Life
Leif Eriksson (also spelled Ericson or Ericsson) was born in Iceland around 970 CE. He would eventually earn the nickname “Leif the Lucky.” He was the son of Erik Thorvaldson, better known as “Erik the Red,” and Thorhild. In Viking tradition, children are named after their father. When Erik the Red had a son and named him Leif, he became Leif Eriksson (Leif, Erik’s son).1 He had two brothers, Thorvald, and Thorstein; and a sister named Freydis. One cannot tell Leif’s story without first knowing his father’s journeys. As a small boy, Leif grew up without his father who had been banished from Iceland after being found guilty of murder. Erik was gone for three
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