Viking Age Timeline

In the year 793, warriors from Scandinavia rowed longships onto the shore of Lindisfarne, an island monastery off the coast of England, and raided it in a single violent morning. That attack is the date historians usually point to as the start of the Viking Age — nearly 300 years of sailing, trading, raiding, and settling that would stretch from North America to Baghdad.

- Place the start and end dates of the Viking Age on a timeline - Describe three different things Vikings did besides raiding - Explain why the Viking Age ended around 1066 - Identify at least two places Vikings traveled to and settled

The raid on Lindisfarne in 793 CE shocked people across Europe because monasteries were thought to be safe, undefended places. Vikings — sailors from what is now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark — targeted them anyway because monasteries stored gold, silver, and other valuables with almost no soldiers guarding them. Word of the attack spread through letters written by monks, and for the next 200 years, coastal towns across Britain and France lived in fear of ships suddenly appearing on the horizon.

Raiding is the part most people remember, but Vikings spent far more time trading and farming. Viking merchants carried furs, walrus ivory, and enslaved people south along Russian rivers to trade in Baghdad and Constantinople, bringing back silver coins, silk, and spices. Around 870, Norse settlers began sailing to Iceland, and by 930 they had set up the Althing, one of the world's oldest parliaments, where free men gathered every summer to settle disputes and make laws.

In 982, Erik the Red was exiled from Iceland for manslaughter and sailed west, discovering and naming Greenland to make it sound inviting to settlers. His son, Leif Erikson, sailed even farther around the year 1000 and reached the coast of North America — landing in a place he called Vinland, likely in modern Newfoundland, Canada. Archaeologists found the remains of a real Norse settlement there at a site called L'Anse aux Meadows, proving Vikings reached the Americas roughly 500 years before Columbus.

The Viking Age is usually said to end in 1066, when the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada invaded England and was defeated and killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. By this time, Scandinavian kings had converted to Christianity, built centralized governments, and stopped relying on raiding fleets — Norse influence didn't disappear, but the era of small independent raiding bands was over.