Toward the end of the 8th century CE, Viking seafarers from what we now call Norway (A), Denmark (B), and Sweden (C) embarked on a series of daring voyages for trade, colonization, and sometimes even plunder. Over the next 250 years, they planted settlements in Europe — from the British Isles (D) and France (E) to Italy (F) and Russia (G). Vikings from Norway, in particular, became the first Europeans, ever, to establish a passage across the Atlantic to North America. They did it in stages, setting up bases, as they went, in the Shetland Islands (H), Faroe Islands (I), Iceland (J), Greenland (K), and — for just a few years — in the place they called Vinland (L).

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Map by Dave Herring