Viking Timeline
793: Vikings plunder Lindisfarne Monastery — the first major raid in England.
800s: Viking raiders harass France, Spain and the British Isles.
810: Danish Vikings attack the Frisian coast of Charlemagne's Frankish Empire.
800-1200: Vikings/Norsemen traveled far and wide throughout the known and unknown world.
841: Vikings establish Dublin as a trade and military base.
860s: Viking settlers enter Faeroe Islands, then discover Iceland.
862: Swedish Vikings become rulers of Kiev and Novgorod.
ca. 874-930: Norse settlers rapidly settle all of the best land in Iceland.
ca. 885: Harold Fairhair unites most of Norway under his rule.
907: The Rus (Swedes who have established themselves in Russia) attack Constantinople sea.
911: Viking chieftain from the Hralph (Rollo) wins French territory, named Normandy after the conquering Northmen.
930: Icelanders found a national assembly, the "Althing" — Europe's first parliament.
960-980: King Harald Bluetooth erects Jelling runestone in memory of his parents.
982: Erik the Red explores Greenland and returns with settlers in 985.
1000: Iceland's "Althing" adopts Christianity as the island's religion.
ca. 1000: Erik's son Leif discovers the North American coast, naming various regions "Helluland," "Markland" and "Vinland."
ca: 1000-1020: Norse Greenlanders and Icelanders voyage to Vinland and encounter Native Americans, whom they call "skraelings."
1015: Olaf Haraldsson completes the conversion of Norway to Christianity (he is later canonized as S. Olaf, patron saint of Norway).
ca. 1050-1350: Norse Greenlanders periodically voyage to Markland (Labrador) to collect timber.
1066: Norwegian King Harald Hardrada is killed by England's Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Normandy's William the Conqueror crosses the English Channel and defeats Harold Godwinson at the battle of Hastings.
1200s: Icelanders begin writing down "sagas," tales of Viking adventure that had been transmitted orally since the 800s.
Early 1200s: Norsemen meet Dorset Paleoeskimos in northern Greenland and Canada.
1250: Thule Eskimos, originally from Alaska, arrive in Canada/Greenland and displace the Dorset peoples.
1260s: Climatic cooling and overgrazing disrupt Greenland's Norse livestock-based economy, and Greenlanders surrender their autonomy to Norway.
1264: Internal and economic problems bring an end to Iceland's independent government, and the king of Norway assumes control.
1350-1450: Thule Eskimos advance south; Norse colonists abandon the Western settlement by 1350, and Eastern settlement around 1450.
1408: A wedding in Hvalsey Church is the last recorded Norse event in Greenland.
1450: The last Norse disappear from Greenland.
1492: Columbus arrives in the Caribbean.
1500s: Vikings find themselves in the midst of a little ice age.
1576: Martin Frobisher arrives on Baffin Island searching for the Northwest Passage.
1721: Danish missionaries return to Greenland believing they will find Norse settlers still living there.
1960: The only verified Norse site in North America is discovered at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, by Helge and Ann Stine Ingstad.
(Combined timeline from Smithsonian exhibition script, American Museum of Natural History Web site and books "What Life Was Like When Longships Sailed" by Time Life Books, Editors 1998, Time Life Inc., and "Historical Atlas of the Vikings" by John Haywood, Penguin, 1995, London).