Time Tangled Island: Viking Explorers
Updated February 21, 2017 | Factmonster Staff 
Factropica Fast Facts and quizzes
by Beth Rowen
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Try our Viking Explorer Quiz!
Factropica Fast Facts
- Vikings lived in Scandinavia, which is present day Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
- The Vikings were the best shipbuilders and sailors of their time.
- If the direction of land was unknown, Viking sailors would release a raven into the air and follow its course.
- Viking warriors were buried with their weapons, but not their armor.
- Viking women could get divorced, own property, control their wealth, and join or lead raiding parties.
- Vikings used runes, a complicated system of symbols, to write their language. Each rune represented a different goddess or god.
- Vikings believed Valkyries, female warriors, watched over battles and decided who would die.
- Vikings believed their dead went to Valhalla, the banquet hall of the god Odin in Asgard.
- Leif Ericsson was the first European discoverer of North America, c. 1000.
- The last attempt by the Vikings to establish a colony in North America occurred around 1013 A.D.
- More from World History
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