Vikings

The Vikings' Territorial Expansion from their Scandinavian homelands across the Atlantic to North America a thousand years ago stands as one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of exploration. Between A.D.750 and 1050, seaborne Viking warriors established trade networks reaching from Baghdad to Greenland, introduced Christianity to Scandinavia, and settled the uninhabited North Atlantic islands. In about A.D. 1000, Leif Eriksson brought his ship to shore in what is today northeastern Canada, becoming the first European to set foot in the New World.

William W. Fitzhugh is the director of the Arctic Studies Center and curator in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. He is the editor of several books, including Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People (1999) and Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska (1988). Elisabeth I. Ward is the curatorial specialist for the Vikings project at the National Museum of Natural History's Arctic Studies Center.