In the year AD 789, three strange ships arrived at Portland on the southern coast of England and Beaduheard, the reeve of the King of Wessex, rode out to meet them. He took with him only a small group of men under the mistaken impression that the strangers were traders…and they killed him. This was the first reported documentation of the Vikings. The Vikings went on all over the known and unknown world claiming land …showed first 75 words of 1326 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1326 total…areas of Britain, Normandy, Sicily and Russia; they traded with Byzantium, Persia and India; they discovered and colonized Iceland and Greenland and reached the coast of North America. And, in the end, far from destroying Western civilization, they enriched it. Parts of their legal system, their tradition of individual freedom, their zest for exploration, and the great Icelandic sagas which reflect their heroic age - these have all become part of our northern European heritage.”