Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When was Leif Erikson born?
Leif was the son of Erik the Red and his wife Thjodhild, and the grandson of Thorvaldr Ásvaldsson, and distant relative of Naddodd, who discovered Iceland. He was a Viking in the early days. His year of birth is most often given as c. 970 or c. 980. Though Leif's birthplace is not accounted for in the sagas, it is likely he was born in Iceland, where his parents met—probably somewhere on the edge of Breiðafjörður, and possibly at the farm "Haukadal" where Thjóðhild's family is said to have been based. Leif had two brothers, whose names were Thorsteinn and Thorvaldr, and a sister, Freydís.
From the 8th to the 10th century, the wider Scandinavian region was the source of Vikings. The looting of the monastery at Lindisfarne in Northeast England in 793 by Norse people has long been regarded as the event which marked the beginning of the Viking Age. This age was characterised by expansion and emigration by Viking seafarers. They colonised, raided, and traded in all parts of Europe. Norwegian Viking explorers first discovered Iceland by accident in the 9th century when heading for the Faroe Islands, and eventually came across Vinland, known today as Newfoundland, in Canada. The Vikings from Norway were most active in the northern and western British Isles and eastern North America isles.
Erik Grønseth (13 September 1925 – 8 October 2005) was a Norwegian sociologist, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oslo from 1971 to 1989, and "one of the post-war pioneers of sociology" in Norway. Together with Harriet Holter, he is considered the founder of Norwegian family sociology.
The Black Death, which wrought havoc throughout Europe during the 14th century, had decimated the ruling families of Scandinavia. King Olav of Denmark and Norway was the last native ruler in Scandinavia. When he died in 1387, his wife Margareta took over the rule of those two countries and then Sweden as well. In 1397 in the town of Kalmar in Sweden, the Union of the three lands under a single crown was made official and Erik of Pomerania was chosen as king. Erik fatefully chose to govern the three kingdoms from Denmark using the Danish aristocracy.
During the Nimrod Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1907, parties led by Edgeworth David became the first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the South Magnetic Pole. Douglas Mawson, who assumed the leadership of the Magnetic Pole party on their perilous return, went on to lead several expeditions until retiring in 1931. In addition, Shackleton and three other members of his expedition made several firsts in December 1908 – February 1909: they were the first humans to traverse the Ross Ice Shelf, the first to traverse the Transantarctic Mountains (via the Beardmore Glacier), and the first to set foot on the South Polar Plateau. An expedition led by Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen from the ship "Fram" became the first to reach the geographic South Pole on 14 December 1911, using a route from the Bay of Whales and up the Axel Heiberg Glacier. One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition reached the pole.
The first expedition to reach the geographic South Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. He and four others arrived at the pole on 14 December 1911, five weeks ahead of a British party led by Robert Falcon Scott as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. Amundsen and his team returned safely to their base, and later knew that Scott and his four companions had died on their return journey.
According to the Chronicle of Eric, written in the 1320s, Stockholm was founded by Birger Jarl around 1250 as a lock to the Lake Mälaren region ("laas fore then sio", "lock before that lake") in order to prevent pirates from reaching the seven cities and nineteen parishes around it. Another medieval source ("Visbyannalerna"), however, claims the city was founded in 1187 following a pagan pillaged the city of Sigtuna, and as there was an "Earl" named Birger around at that time too, the disputed origin of the city are likely to remain obscure and some historians choose a diplomatic interpretation saying there was some sort of fortification around by the mouth of lake Mälaren when the city was founded during the second half of the 13th century. As Snorri mentions no city in his account but some sort of fortification called a "kastali" (in various manuscripts curiously said to be located east and west of "Stocksund"), it has generally been assumed this fortification eventually developed into the castle Tre Kronor located where still is the Stockholm Palace.
The first incursion of the Vikings in Iberia has been characterised as 'probably the most significant episode of the whole period of Viking activity in the South'. It is mentioned in "Annales Bertiniani", and dated August 844, when a group from a plundering expedition entered the Garonne and reached Galicia. Despite storm damage, some proceeded to South-West Spain. This account is consistent with several later, but independent sources in Latin and Arabic. In particular, the late ninth- or early tenth-century "Chronicle of Alfonso III" adds that after plundering a number of coastal villages they were ultimately repulsed in the vicinity of "Farum Brecantium" (i.e. the Tower of Hercules). Ramiro I of Asturias gathered troops in Galicia and Asturia for the counter-attack. After the Asturian victory, the Vikings continued their voyage in direction of Lisbon. While some authors consider that the reliability of this chronicle is open to doubt, others consider that other local chronicles confirm the arrival of the Norsemen.
Martin Frobisher, licensed by Elizabeth I and backed by a group of merchant adventurers, sought gold in the New World and a northwest passage to the Orient. George Best accompanied Frobisher on all of his three voyages (in 1576, 1577 and 1578) and this work is the first account of them. It has two maps drawn by James Beare, Frobisher's principal surveyor, The rough outline map of the west of Europe, Groenland and "the supposed fyrmeland of America" wrongly convinced many people in England that the Northwest Passage had actually been discovered. But it was not until the late nineteenth century that the actual existence of a northwest passage was proved and only at the beginning of this century that the transit was made. Frobisher discovered Hudson Strait (which he named Mistaken Strait) and returned home with shiploads of fool's gold (iron pyrites) and mica, which finally served as road building material.
The Løkken Mine is an underground pyrite mine located in the municipality of Meldal in Sør-Trøndelag, Norway. The mine was operative from 1654 to 1987, from the mining community Løkken Verk. It contained the largest deposits of its kind in Norway. Between 1654 and 1845, a total of 11,300 tons of copper was produced from the mine. From 1904 the mine was run by the company Orkla Grube-Aktiebolag, and until 1987 a total of 24 million tons of pyrite was produced from the mine. In addition to sulphur, the pyrite contained about 2% copper, in addition to zinc and traces of silver and gold. The products were originally transported to the sea by horse and sledge during winter time. From 1908 the ore was transported by the Thamshavn Line, which was the first electrical railway line in Norway. The annual production was about 350,000 tons of ore during its final years.
Abel Jansen Tasman, credited as the first European to discover Tasmania (in 1642) and who named it Van Diemen's Land, did not encounter any of the Aboriginal Tasmanians when he landed.
In 1772, a French exploratory expedition under Marion Dufresne visited Tasmania. At first, contact with the Aboriginal people was friendly; however the Aboriginal Tasmanians became alarmed when another boat was dispatched towards the shore. It was reported that spears and stones were thrown and the French responded with musket fire, killing at least one Aboriginal person and wounding several others. Two later French expeditions led by Bruni d'Entrecasteaux in 1792–93 and Nicolas Baudin in 1802 made friendly contact with the Aboriginal Tasmanians; the d'Entrecasteaux expedition doing so over an extended period of time.
Several years later, the Norwegian Captain Roald Amundsen and the Englishman Captain Robert Scott raced to become the first to reach the South Pole. Both expeditions started almost simultaneously but it was Amundsen who reached the pole first on December 14, 1911. Both men carried Tabloid outfits with them.
Sir Richard Grenville, leader of Raleigh's expedition, founded the Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island off the coast of modern North Carolina in 1585. Among the ruins at the Roanoke site, archaeologists have discovered lumps of smelted copper and a goldsmith’s crucible attributed to Gans's work at the colony. Because the royal mining company failed to resupply colonists who were also becoming increasingly fearful of conflicts with the Native Americans, they accepted an offer from Sir Francis Drake in June 1586 to sail them to England. Each of the colonists, including Gans, left North America.
Ernest Shackleton, who had been a member of Scott's expedition, organized and led the Nimrod Expedition from 1907 to 1909. The expedition's primary objective was of reaching the South Pole. Based in McMurdo Sound, the expedition pioneered the Beardmore Glacier route to the South Pole, and the (limited) use of motorised transport. Its southern march reached 88°23'S, a new Farthest South record 97 geographical miles from the Pole before having to turn back. During the expedition, Shackleton was the first to reach the polar plateau. Parties led by T. W. Edgeworth David also became the first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the South Magnetic Pole.
In 1926 Wisting participated in Amundsen's successful attempt to fly over the North Pole. In the airship "Norge" they reached the pole on 12 May 1926. The three previous claims to have arrived at the North Pole—by Frederick Cook in 1908, Robert Peary in 1909, and Richard E. Byrd in 1926 —are all disputed, as being either of dubious accuracy or outright fraud. Some of those disputing these earlier claims therefore consider the crew of the "Norge" to be the first verified explorers to have reached the North Pole. In addition Wisting, along with Amundsen, was one of the two first persons who had been to both the North Pole and the South Pole.
Roanoke Island was the site of the Roanoke Colony, an English settlement initially established in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh. A group of about 120 men, women and children arrived in 1587. Shortly after arriving in this New World, colonist Eleanor Dare, daughter of Governor John White, gave birth to Virginia Dare. She was the first English child born in North America. Governor White returned to England later that year for supplies. Due to impending war with Spain, White was unable to return to Roanoke Island until 1590. When he arrived, the colony had vanished. The fate of those first colonists remains a mystery to this day and is one of America's most intriguing unsolved mysteries. Archaeologists, historians, and other researchers continue to work to resolve the mystery. Visitors to the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site can watch "The Lost Colony", the second-longest-running outdoor theatre production in the United States, which presents a conjecture of the fate of Roanoke Colony.
In about the same time Christina married in Sweden with a man of non-royal origins, Eric Jedvardsson, later known as Eric the Saint. He probably came from the province of Västergötland which bordered to Denmark. Since their son Canute was betrothed by 1160, the marriage of Christina and Eric probably took place in the early 1140s. The marriage gave Eric the means to claim the Swedish throne; the House of Stenkil, to which Christina belonged on her mother's side, became extinct in the male line in the 1120s. The new king Sverker I did not have royal forebears. According to later tradition, Eric took royal titles in 1150. Six years later, he became king after the assassination of Sverker, and Christina became the Queen of Sweden. Her queenship probably lasted for four years, from 1156 to 1160.
In the year 795 Vikings (probably of Norwegian origin) raided islands off the coast of Ireland for the first time. This was the beginning of a new phase of Irish history, which saw many native communities – particularly ecclesiastical ones – relocate themselves on the continent, or further afield in places like Iceland and the Faroe Islands, to escape the pagan marauders. For about two decades the invaders confined their activities to coastal settlements; raiding parties were generally small and there is no evidence that any of them wintered in Ireland during this early phase of "hit-and-run" activity. Typically the Vikings would arrive at a settlement without warning, plunder what goods and people they could – the people were usually sold as slaves, though notable personages were often held for ransom – before retreating to their Scandinavian or British bases. This period lasted from 795 until 813, after which there occurred a hiatus of eight years.
It is now thought that these early raids were launched directly from southwest Norway, and that during the period of calm (814–820) the Norwegian Vikings were occupied in northern Britain, laying the foundations of a new kingdom referred to in Irish sources as Laithlind (later Lochlainn). Laithlind was once thought to be in Norway but it is now identified with Viking settlements in the British Isles, especially those in Scotland and the Isle of Man.
In 1751, the Swedish mineralogist Axel Fredrik Cronstedt discovered a heavy mineral from the mine at Bastnäs, later named cerite. Thirty years later, the fifteen-year-old Vilhelm Hisinger, from the family owning the mine, sent a sample of it to Carl Scheele, who did not find any new elements within. In 1803, after Hisinger had become an ironmaster, he returned to the mineral with Jöns Jacob Berzelius and isolated a new oxide which they named "ceria" after the dwarf planet Ceres, which had been discovered two years earlier. Ceria was simultaneously independently isolated in Germany by Martin Heinrich Klaproth. Between 1839 and 1843, ceria was shown to be a mixture of oxides by the Swedish surgeon and chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander, who lived in the same house as Berzelius: he separated out two other oxides which he named "lanthana" and "didymia". He partially decomposed a sample of cerium nitrate by roasting it in air and then treating the resulting oxide with dilute nitric acid. Since lanthanum's properties differed only slightly from those of cerium, and occurred along with it in its salts, he named it from the Ancient Greek "λανθάνειν" [lanthanein] (lit. "to lie hidden"). Relatively pure lanthanum metal was first isolated in 1923.
The Viking Ship Museum overlooking the inlet of Roskilde Fjord was built in 1969 with the main purpose of exhibiting the five newly discovered Skuldelev ships. In the late 1990s, excavations for the shipyard expansion of the museum uncovered a further 9 ships from the Viking Age and early medieval period. It is the largest discovery of prehistoric ships in Northern Europe and includes the longest Viking warship ever found; the "Roskilde 6" at 36 metres. The excavations are not yet completed.
Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik; 21 January 1829 – 8 December 1907) was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death, and the last Bernadotte King of Norway from 1872 until his dethronement in 1905.
The 1874 book "America Not Discovered by Columbus" by Norwegian-American Rasmus B. Anderson helped popularize the idea that Vikings were the first Europeans in the New World, an idea that was all but verified in 1960. During his appearance at the Norse-American Centennial at the Minnesota State Fair in 1925, President Calvin Coolidge gave recognition to Leif Erikson as the discoverer of America due to research by Norwegian-American scholars such as Knut Gjerset and Ludvig Hektoen. In 1929, Wisconsin became the first U.S. state to officially adopt Leif Erikson Day as a state holiday, thanks in large part to efforts by Rasmus Anderson. In 1931, Minnesota did also. By 1956, Leif Erikson Day had been made an official observance in seven states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Illinois, Colorado, Washington, and California) and one Canadian province (Saskatchewan).
"Leif Erikson" steadily deteriorated after years of neglect and vandalism, and by 1980 was in such poor condition that it was even considered that the ship be burned in the traditional Viking manner of putting a ship to rest. This suggestion inspired Emil Olson's grandson, Will Borg, to bring volunteers together and begin fundraising efforts to restore the ship. Through donations, festivals and other endeavors, the group raised $100,000. Boatbuilders began the restoration in 1991. With restoration nearly complete, the ship was reinstalled on display at the eastern end of Leif Erikson Park in Duluth, Minnesota in 2001. Due to further vandalism and degradation, the ship was again removed from the park by cranes and a flatbed trailer in 2013. "Leif Erikson" has been undergoing further restoration. Fundraising efforts aim to return it to the park in a new, secure display structure. The proposed building is designed by Krech Ojard & Associates and intended to be located near Leif Erikson Park at Superior Street and 10th Avenue East. "Leif Erikson" is presently housed at the Lafarge cement terminal.
Leif was the son of Erik the Red, the founder of the first Norse settlement in Greenland and of Thjodhild (Þjóðhildur), both of Norwegian origin. His place of birth is not known, but he is assumed to have been born in Iceland, which had recently been colonized by Norsemen mainly from Norway. He grew up in the family estate "Brattahlíð" in the Eastern Settlement in Greenland. Leif had two known sons: Thorgils, born to noblewoman Thorgunna in the Hebrides; and Thorkell, who succeeded him as chieftain of the Greenland settlement.
"Leif Erikson" was built at Korgen in Nordland, Norway during 1926 at the request of Gerhard Folgerø (1886-1948) for a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The vessel is built of Norway Pine and constructed in the form of a modified knarr. The vessel is 42 feet long, has a 12 feet 9 inches beam and draws 4 feet of water. The elaborate dragon's head and tail were designed by architect Gerhard Johan Lilletvedt of Bergen.
The ship was invited to Duluth, Minnesota by Norwegian-American immigrant H. H. Borgen. The vessel set sail in 1926 from Bergen traveling to Labrador and then to Boston and New York City. It sailed through the Great Lakes to the western shores of Lake Superior. When Captain Folgerø and his crew landed at Duluth on June 23, 1927, they had traveled a distance of 6,700 miles, the greatest distance for a ship of its size in modern history.