May 24: Vikings

Not sure what everyone thinks of SpongeBob SquarePants - in general or as entertainment for children - but I've grown quite fond of it myself over the past few months. The stuff cracks me up! Anyway, tonight we watched the "Dear Vikings" episode in which SpongeBob is curious about what the Vikings are and do, so he writes them a letter to which the Vikings respond. If you want to see the whole episode, check it out here. It's an entertaining 12 minutes or so. Afterwards, both the kids and my wife were curious about the Vikings. And, since my knowledge on the subject ends with those Vikings out of Minnesota, I figured the Internet would be a good place to learn a little bit more. Here are some of the bullet points from what I was able to discover:

• In Old Norse, the word is spelled Vikingr.
• Vikings were Scandinavian, descending from Iceland and Greenland
• They were the first Europeans to discover and explore North America; 500 years before Columbus
• The Viking Age, as it was called, is thought to have been from approximately 750 to 1066 AD.
• Leif Eriksson and Erik the Red are among the more commonly known Viking brethren (not to mention Hagar the Horrible).
• Christianity, the rise of centralized authority and the development of more robust coastal defense systems all led to the decline of the Viking civilization.
• Norse men were required to carry weapons at all times.
• Vikings sailed two types of ships - drakkar for exploring and warfare, and knarr for carrying cargo.

If you want to learn more about the Vikings, I found this site which gives a tour of the Viking exhibit at the Smithsonian. Good stuff.