Discovering new lands
The Vikings were brave sailors and explorers. They thought nothing of taking their families on long, dangerous journeys across the sea. They discovered and settled in several remote countries that lay to the west of Britain in the north Atlantic Ocean: the Faeroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland.
A Viking man called Bjarni Herjolfsson discovered America by accident in the year 985, when his ship was blown off course on the way to Greenland. A few years later, in 1001, Leif Eriksson 'the Lucky' sailed there to take a proper look at it. He was the first European to land in America.
When the Vikings discovered America they called it 'Vinland' (Wine-land) because they found grapes growing there.
