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Mid-Atlantic Ridge and adjacent plates. Volcanoes indicated in red.. In geological terms, Iceland is a young island. It started to form in the Miocene era about 20 million years ago from a series of volcanic eruptions on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where it lies between the North American Plate and Eurasian Plate.
The oldest known source which mentions the name "Iceland" is an eleventh-century rune carving from Gotland. There is a possible early mention of Iceland in the book De mensura orbis terrae by the Irish monk Dicuil, dating to 825. [9] Dicuil claimed to have met some monks who had lived on the island of Thule. They said that darkness reigned ...
The union between Denmark and Norway, ignoring some shorter periods, lasted until 1814, when Norway briefly gained independence, and Iceland became an integral part of Denmark until 1918, when Iceland was recognised as a fully sovereign state in personal union with Denmark under a common monarch, on 1 December that same year. [citation needed]
A doublet earthquake strikes southern Iceland with a composite magnitude of 6.1 M W [38] September: Iceland faces financial crisis following the collapse of the country's three major commercial banks. [citation needed] 2009: 26 January: After months of rallies outside the parliament building the Icelandic government resigns. [citation needed] 1 ...
Iceland's best-known classical works of literature are the Icelanders' sagas, prose epics set in Iceland's age of settlement. The most famous of these include Njáls saga , about an epic blood feud, and Grænlendinga saga and Eiríks saga , describing the discovery and settlement of Greenland and Vinland (modern Newfoundland ).
Hannes Hafstein served as the first minister of Iceland from 31 January 1904 until 31 March 1909. The Act of Union, signed on 1 December 1918 by Icelandic and Danish authorities, recognized Iceland as a fully sovereign state (the Kingdom of Iceland), joined with Denmark in a personal union with the Danish king. Iceland established its own flag ...
The constitution, written the same year, was revised in 1903 and the extent of home rule increased in 1904. [3] Denmark recognized the independence of Iceland on 1 December 1918 and the two countries remained in personal union until 1944 as part of the Danish–Icelandic Act of Union. [4]
The Icelandic Commonwealth, [a] also known as the Icelandic Free State, was the political unit existing in Iceland between the establishment of the Althing (Icelandic: Alþingi) in 930 and the pledge of fealty to the Norwegian king with the Old Covenant in 1262.