[00:03.20]Unit 7 The Sea

[00:05.84]Lesson 1 The Spirit of Explorers

[00:11.27]VIKING VOYAGES TO AMERICA

[00:15.18]The Vikings were the first Europeans

[00:17.89]to reach America.

[00:19.97]They achieved this long before Columbus

[00:22.72]ever set sail.

[00:24.67]The Vikings were a group of people

[00:27.19]whose ancestors came from Scandinavia.

[00:31.11]They controlled the seas

[00:32.85]and coasts of Northern Europe

[00:35.56]between the 8th and 10th centuries AD.

[00:39.55]BY around 900 AD,

[00:42.15]there were many places in Northern Europe

[00:45.06]where the Vikings chose to live.

[00:48.24]In 982 AD, when a man called Eric the Red

[00:54.09]decided to set sail further west,

[00:57.05]there were as many as 10,000 Vikings

[01:00.39]living in Iceland.

[01:03.10]According to the old stories of Iceland

[01:06.08]and Norway, Eric the Red

[01:08.37]was forced to leave Iceland

[01:10.61]because he had committed a murder,

[01:13.14]for which he got into trouble.

[01:15.34]Eric reached Greenland and discovered

[01:18.33]that people could live in the place

[01:20.63]where he landed.

[01:22.98]He returned to Iceland and told people there

[01:26.32]about Greenland.

[01:28.34]He persuaded some people to go back

[01:30.56]with him to Greenland.

[01:32.90]Eric set sail once again,

[01:35.32]this time with 25 ships,

[01:38.37]of which only 14 made it to Greenland.

[01:40.97]