Nearly 500 years before Columbus sailed, Viking explorer Leif Erikson reached North America. Around 1021 AD, Norse settlers built a base camp they named Vinland at what is now LAnse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, used for boat repairs and further exploration. For many centuries, the tale lived on in Icelandic Sagas as mere legend until Norwegian explorers Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad uncovered remains of timber-framed turf buildings, a forge, and daily life artifacts in 1960, proving the Norse had

Harald Hardrada: The Viking Who Lived a Lifetime of Legends (1030–1066) Harald Hardrada didn’t live a life. He lived several. Born a Norwegian prince in 1015, Harald was still a teenager when he watched his brother—King Olaf—die in battle. Wounded and hunted, Harald fled into exile. For most men, that would have been the end of the story. For Harald, it was the beginning. He traveled east, fighting as a mercenary in the courts of Kievan Rus before reaching Constantinople, where he joined the leg