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The University of Minnesota is working with the Minnesota Vikings in an effort to keep the Washington Redskins’ name from being used in “promotional and game date materials” during the NFL teams’ Nov. 2 game at the school’s stadium in Minneapolis, according to an Aug. 1 letter from university President Eric W. Kaler to U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.).

Fifty thousand 'Vikings' landed on the shores of a small village in northern Spain on Sunday, as part of an annual festival which commemorates a Scandinavian invasion which took place a thousand years ago. On the first Sunday of August, Catoria is flooded with ‘blood-thirsty’ men and women from all across Europe. Dressed in animal skins and armed with the finest plastic weaponry, they disembark on the rugged Galician coast with the aim of capturing the Towers of the West, just as Norway’s King Olaf did a millennia ago. The ‘blood’ spilt during the simulated battles does taste distinctly like...

A massive research project, 15 years in the making, has revealed that beneath Dublin’s modern streets lies a trove of buried Viking warriors and artifacts. Archaeologists say the number of Viking warrior burials in Dublin is astounding. A project cataloguing these burials was began in 1999. Now nearing its conclusion, the project will result in the publication of an 800-page tome titled ‘Viking Graves and Grave Goods in Ireland.’ ...the National Museum of Ireland... houses a Viking exhibition, which includes a ninth century Viking skeleton with sword and spearhead, found in the War Memorial Park, Islandbridge in 1934. Between the...

according to the Icelandic sagas Every few years I re-read the Icelandic sagas in translation. This time, I kept a notepad handy and jotted down the more interesting nicknames. Here are a few of them. For those unfamiliar with the sagas, I should mention that they were regarded by the 12th- and 13th-century Icelanders for whom they were written as essentially factual works, albeit with some literary embellishments. In other words, the following names all belonged to ostensibly historical figures.

<p>Ship logs and pottery show how the geomagnetic field has changed.</p> <p>Old ship records of magnetic north have helped to unravel a record of our planet's field.</p> <p>While sailors plied the Seven Seas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, little did they know that their ships' logs would one day help scientists to reconstruct the history of the Earth's magnetic field.</p>

Your humble correspondent is a fan of the History Channel show, "Vikings." However, its historical accuracy leaves something to be desired to the extent that a week ago I posted a thread at IMDB, Things I Learned While Watching 'Vikings', which humorously mocked such inaccuracies as well as anachronisms on the show. Along with noticing that Rollo wore L.A. Ink type tattoos, I also took note of a completely unhistorical type of punishment meted out to the apostate monk Athelstan: "The Church punished apostate monks by crucifying them and doing their best to make them appear like Jesus including a...

Aussie Ragnar vs Italian Ragnar. Smiling Ragnar vs Laughing Ragnar. Athelstan spoke Norse, Old Saxon, and English while Eric spoke Norse, English, and Guttural Bronx. Floki danced on floors while Einar danced on oars. Bjorn chopped off a head while Einar chopped off a pigtail. “Vikings” ate fish while Eric ate knish. Weird Ragnar son eye from prophecy vs weird Ragnar son eye from hawk. Ragnar warned “Never hesitate” while Eric wondered “Why did he hesitate?” Anachronisms: Rollo's L.A. Ink arm vs Morgana's Maidenform bra.

A team of researchers working in Hungary has proposed that a sun compass artifact found in a convent in 1948 might have been used in conjunction with crystals to allow Vikings to guide their boats even at night. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical & Engineering Sciences, the team describes theories they've developed that might explain how Viking sailors were able to so accurately sail to places such as Greenland. Since the discovery of the sun compass fragment, researchers have theorized that Viking sailors used them to plot their course—at least when the...

1. Bjorn Lodbrok has a worse haircut than Kim Jong Un. 2. Beware the Duke of Earl...Haraldson. 3. In Viking vs Viking battles, those wearing plain brown hoodies are doomed to die. 4. Viking trophy wives are high maintenance. 5. Ragnar Lodbrok is a secret humanitarian. 6. Although the Vikings had extensive contacts with North German Saxons, they were unaware of the existence of England until they arrived there. 7. Eighth century Viking women had the sensibilities of 21st century feminists. 8. No-Fault Viking divorce is quick and easy. No lawyers! 9. The Church punished apostate monks by crucifying them...

<p>LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a Viking longhouse that many believe was the home of Snorri Thorfinnsson, thought to be the first European born in the New World.</p> <p>The 1,000-year-old ruins were found in a glacial valley in northern Iceland during a survey of Viking-era buildings led by archaeologists at the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>

<p>LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a Viking longhouse that many believe was the home of Snorri Thorfinnsson, thought to be the first European born in the New World.</p> <p>The 1,000-year-old ruins were found in a glacial valley in northern Iceland during a survey of Viking-era buildings led by archaeologists at the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>

Archaeologists find legendary Icelandic home By Times Wire Services A UCLA team has found the Iceland home of Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first person of European descent born in the New World. Icelandic sagas from the 13th century tell the story of how Snorri’s parents led the first Scandinavian group that attempted to settle in Vinland — on the Canadian coast — around A.D. 1000. The attempt failed, and the family moved to Iceland, but Snorri was born while they were there. The “Vinland Sagas,” which also tell the story of Leif Ericson, are the earliest recorded history of the Scandinavian...

The death of Ireland’s High King during the famous bloody battle of Clontarf almost exactly 1,000 years ago will be remembered with a special service in his burial county of Armagh next month. Brian Boru (Bóraime) may have been born in County Clare but, as the well-known theme song ‘The Boys from the County Armagh’ notes, his ashes lie in the city, at the Church of Ireland Cathedral. The legendary leader had requested to be buried in Armagh, possibly due to its religious links to St Patrick, and it is said he was brought to the city by the clergy...

Clear your calendars: Viking apocalypse scheduled for Saturday Thor, Odin, Loki all scheduled to attend epic battle hastening world's end Now's the time to cash out your life insurance policy and have a little fun, because, according to Norse mythology, the world is ending this Saturday. Sorry to be a bummer, but you should know we're about 100 days into an epic battle that will culminate with the earth falling into the sea, NPR explains. On the bright side, at least you'll have an excuse for not going to your nephew's Chuck E. Cheese's party on Sunday. For those whose...

On this stick from the 1200s found in Bergen, two men named Sigurd and Lavran have written their names both in code and with regular runes. This helped runologist Jonas Nordby to solve the Jötunvillur code. For the first time, the Jötunvillur runic code is cracked. It can help to solve the mystery of the Vikings’ secret codes. Why did the Vikings use codes when they wrote runes? Was it a secret message or other reasons that they encrypted runic texts? This, we still know little about. But runologist Jonas Nordby think he may be one step closer to the...

Hello. My name is Chris Kluwe, and for eight years I was the punter for the Minnesota Vikings. In May 2013, the Vikings released me from the team. At the time, quite a few people asked me if I thought it was because of my recent activism for same-sex marriage rights, and I was very careful in how I answered the question. My answer, verbatim, was always, "I honestly don't know, because I'm not in those meetings with the coaches and administrative people." This is a true answer. I honestly don't know if my activism was the reason I got...

Among the distressing things to come out of Chris Kluwe’s blistering attack on three of his former bosses is this: Somebody is a liar. Kluwe wrote a scathing piece Thursday for Deadspin.com in which he called Vikings general manager Rick Spielman and former head coach Leslie Frazier “cowards” and skewered special teams coordinator Mike Priefer, describing him as “a bigot.” Kluwe is convinced he lost his punting job with the Vikings because he was outspoken in his support of gay marriage, and his vitriol toward Spielman, Frazier and Priefer come from that. He really unloaded on Priefer, saying that “if...

On Christmas Day 1013, Danish ruler Sweyn Forkbeard was declared King of all England and the town of Gainsborough its capital. But why is so little known of the man who would be England's shortest-reigning king and the role he played in shaping the early history of the nation? For 20 years, Sweyn, a "murderous character" who deposed his father Harold Bluetooth, waged war on England. And exactly 1,000 years ago, with his son Canute by his side, a large-scale invasion finally proved decisive. It was a brutal time, which saw women burned alive, children impaled on lances and men...

As archaeologists dug in preparation for a new railway line, they found traces of two rows of wooden pillars in Old Uppsala... One stretched about 1,000 yards and the other was half as long... were likely from the 5th century...