[00:01.00]25 The Spirit of Explorers
[00:02.00]Viking voyages to america
[00:03.00]The Vikings were the first Europeans who reached America.
[00:04.00]They achieved this long before Columbus ever set sail.
[00:05.00]The Vikings were a group of people who originated from Scandinavia.
[00:06.00]They dominated the seas and coasts of Northern Europe
[00:07.00]between the 8th and 10th centuries AD.
[00:08.00]By around 900AD,there were mnay places in Northern Europe
[00:09.00]where the Viking chose to live.
[00:10.00]In 982AD,when a man called Eric the Red decided to set sail further west,
[00:11.00]there were as many as 10,000 Vikings living Iceland.
[00:12.00]According to the legends of Iceland and Norway,
[00:13.00]Eric the Red was forced to leave Iceland because he had committed a murder,
[00:14.00]for which he got into trouble.
[00:15.00]Eric reached Greenland
[00:16.00]and discovered that the place where he landed could be colonised.
[00:17.00]He returned to Iceland and told people there about Greenland.
[00:18.00]He persuaded some people to go back with him to Greenland.
[00:19.00]Eric set sail once again,this time with 25 ships,
[00:20.00]of which only 14 made it to Greenland.
[00:21.00]Not long after Eric the Red had landed in Greenland,
[00:22.00]a man called Biarni set sail from Iceland in search of Eric's party.
[00:23.00]Biarni was hoping to join his father who was with Eric,
[00:24.00]but he was blown off course and found himself in an unknown land,
[00:25.00]from where he eventually reached Greenland.
[00:26.00]In the year 1002,when Eric the Red's son Leif was planning a trip further west,
[00:27.00]Biarni was the man with whom Leif discussed his plans.
[00:28.00]Leif followed Biarni's directions
[00:29.00]and sailed to what is believed to be the coast of present-day Canada.
[00:30.00]He then sailed further south to an island which he named Vinland
[00:31.00]but is now known as Newfoundland.
[00:32.00]We know about Eric the Red and Leif's deeds
[00:33.00]through legends which were written down centuries later in Norway and Iceland.
[00:34.00]They are the first records we have of Europeans sailing to America.
