Who were the Vikings?
The Vikings were seafaring warriors, traders, and explorers from Scandinavia (modern-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) who left a massive mark on history between the 8th and 11th centuries.
While pop culture often paints them strictly as brutal, horn-helmeted raiders—a myth, as their helmets were actually smooth—raiding was only part of their story. Driven by a search for land, wealth, and better trade routes, they used highly advanced, shallow-draft longships to navigate both open oceans and shallow rivers. This allowed them to strike deep inland across Europe, but also to explore. They settled in places like Britain, France (Normandy), and Russia, and even established a brief settlement in North America (Newfoundland) around 500 years before Columbus.
This is a new unit for the IB Diploma Paper 1 and We Will exam8ne how some of the stories we hear about the vikings are not really true andhowtjeir innovation was “inspired” by climate changes.
