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Written sources consider the age of settlement in Iceland to have begun with settlement by Ingólfr Arnarson around 874, for he was the first to sail to Iceland with the purpose of settling the land. Archaeological evidence shows that extensive human settlement of the island indeed began at this time, and "that the whole country was occupied ...
The recorded history of Iceland began with the settlement by Viking explorers and the people they enslaved from Western Europe, particularly in modern-day Norway and the British Isles, in the late ninth century.
Peasant rebellions, traditionally defined, never occurred in Iceland, even though peasant unrest was fairly common. [16] Slavery was practiced in Iceland from settlement to the early 12th century. Icelandic law allowed individuals guilty of theft or failure to pay debts to be enslaved.
Iceland is a geologically young land mass, having formed an estimated 20 million years ago due to volcanic eruptions on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. One of the last larger islands to remain uninhabited, the first human settlement date is generally accepted to be 874, although there is some evidence to suggest human activity prior to the Norse ...
6. The Western Settlement disappears in mid 14th century. 7. In 1408 is the Marriage in Hvalsey, the last known written document on the Norse in Greenland. 8. The Eastern Settlement disappears in mid 15th century. 9. John Cabot is the first European in the post-Iceland era to visit Labrador - Newfoundland in 1497. 10.
This is a timeline of Icelandic history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Iceland and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see history of Iceland .
Landnámabók, a medieval Icelandic manuscript, describes in considerable detail the settlement of Iceland (Icelandic: landnám) by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries. According to the Landnámabók , Iceland was discovered by Naddodd, who was sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands, but got lost and drifted to the east coast of Iceland.
Ingólfr was said to have settled a large part of southwestern Iceland, although after his settlement nothing more was known of him. His son, Þorsteinn Ingólfsson, was a major chieftain and was said to have founded the Kjalarnesþing , the first thing, or parliament, in Iceland. It was a forerunner of the Althingi.