The Animated History of Iceland

[Music] the samurai limited-edition pin is available now hurry and audio's now before they run out or get one for free by signing up at patreon like all of these nice people this episode is supported by curiosity stream sign up today and get access to nebula a streaming platform for creators by creators Iceland is a great example of how history and culture can be preserved the tiny volcanic island within breathing distance of the Arctic Circle acted as an incubator for cultures that haven't been around for centuries at this point giving a reflection into pre-christian Scandinavia nation states as we know them today are influenced by a huge variety of factors the speed of which can be measured in proximity Denmark was the center of the Nordic world in the early Middle Ages it's wet swampy and disease-ridden marshes or mark was what insulated the scandinavian peninsula from the rest of europe which had allowed the Vikings to originate in the first place in fact this barrier as well as the volatile in stormy North Sea was so difficult to navigate that the Scandinavians were a footnote to early European cultures like the Romans only northern barbarian Raiders were talked about at any significant length gotta hand it to the Romans they didn't discriminate because everyone was a barbarian it would take centuries of technology to bring Scandinavia into the Christian fold better roads stronger horses and ships that wouldn't capsize when you put them in the bathtub and thus Scandinavia was Christianized and if the Europeans had simultaneously gotten their hands on the spectacularly wealthy Viking trade routes at the same time well that was just an added bonus right Iceland on the other hand was incubated not by a mark but by the gargantuan North Atlantic Ocean the further north you go the worse the storms get besides Iceland was out of the way and didn't offer much in the way available trade to even bother with so a few more centuries in the technology of an Iceland would have to wait it's turn but in the meantime we got to see what these northern barbarians would do isolated so far from the rest of the world [Music] during the Viking Age also called the early Middle Ages before it was cool the Scandinavians ruled the trade on the northern part of the European continent the trade was financed by raiding or Viking it wasn't long before these raids ventured outside of Scandinavia into pre-existing yes let me say that again preexisting trade routes bringing back valuable wealth to denmark norway and sweden because nothing sells quite like stolen christian treasure eventually the Vikings themselves were forging new trade routes in faraway unknown lands exploring beyond their icy Scandinavian fortress and the direction of this exploration was often determined by which way the perspective nations were facing the Swedes went north to Lapland and east to what is now Russia the Danes went to the British Isles and mainland Western Europe but as far as the Norwegians heck all they had was a whole lot of ocean near where they were there must be at least something out there hey look some Islands and there was the Faroe Islands barren for most of its history was discovered in route between Norway and Ireland settled by the Vikings and used as a trade post for further Viking raids along with orkney and shetland the Faroe Islands became an important link to great wealth over the sea just try not to get lost getting there one fine day a Viking God lost getting there and found himself sighting an island he was certainly never seen before there must be humans there he exclaimed look at all the smoke from the campfires not realizing that volcanoes are more than capable of producing smoke without human habitation Iceland is the Land of Fire and Ice literally originating as a series of volcanoes in a faultline exploding its way out of the Norwegian Sea and cleaving itself into its ragged and barren landscape there is some evidence that the Norse were in fact not the first settlers of the island who may have been Gaelic monks from Ireland but they didn't stay presumably because it's bloody freezing but as for the Norwegians who were all too familiar with living in a frozen wasteland to them it was absolute paradise this place is beautiful isn't it I shall call it snow land alright let's go home it's freezing not long after another sailor Catherine's father son also accidentally landed on the eyelid this place is beautiful isn't it I shall name it Gotha Shami after myself alright let's go home it's freezing finally a third sailor rough enough lucky Phil garrison sailed to the island on purpose this time this place is beautiful isn't it huh there's an awful lot of ice here hmm and so Iceland was born views of this land filled with plenty of timber ivory and fish spread quickly annoy engulfed fear Arneson would sit sail to the island in 874 as he neared the island he threw two carved wooden pillars overboard and vowed to settle wherever they washed ashore seeing it as a blessing from the gods the pillars landed nearby to the settlement of what would become Reykjavik meaning Smoky Cove after the geothermal steam rising from the rock just as a side note remember this guy well according to legend he had a crew member that escaped when Gotha left for Scotland and some believe that he and his slaves may have in fact become the first permanent settlers of the island we will probably never know for sure in Gaul fair settlement was by all evidence a very difficult life the winters were harsh life stopped kept dying and his Irish slaves killed his brother for which he in turn pursued and killed in retribution which is you know a great star but other than that we don't really know much mostly hearsay and oral stories passed down through the ages even the historical chronicle of Iceland was written centuries after the Viking Age so it's hard to get an accurate picture of these early settlements what we do know is that the land became periodically settled over a few decades with outlaws exiles broke Vikings and all other manner of marginalized people mostly from Norway but also elsewhere in Scandinavia curiously enough there's also a lot of genetic evidence that these settlers brought with him captured slave women and concubines mostly from Scotland and Ireland in Gaul fierce son Torstein began the tradition of meeting together for the thing which was a custom of chieftains meeting together and discussing matters in a sort of viking-age style democracy as more and more chieftains arrived to the island the thing grew until a National Assembly or all thing was a stab in 9:30 presided over in Scandinavian customary laws by law speakers this makes the old thing the oldest Parliament in the world from there Iceland would be home to all sorts of interesting characters one of these was an extremely volatile Viking named Torvald ass Wilson who was expelled from Norway for murder whereupon he and his family settled Iceland the Apple as it seems doesn't fall far from the tree as was the case with his son Eric the bread who was then himself expelled from Iceland for murder he used his exile to discover the island of Greenland and settled it permanently in 1985 having a pedigree for discovery at this point his son Leif Erikson would go on to be one of the most famous Icelanders in history credited for being the first European to discover America he created a settlement in an area he called Vinland in modern-day Canada but then abandoned the village presumably because like who would want to live in Canada it is around this time that Christianity started to take ahold of Iceland mostly by pressure from Norway to improve relations for trade Leif Eriksson was even among the first converted and is also credited with introducing the new religion to Greenland although slowly being Christianized the Icelanders maintained fast amounts of their ancestral pagan customs they still met at the all thing they still rated as Vikings for a long time and they still settle disputes the way Vikings would they gave birth to a rich literary sector biting down and preserving the oral accounts in a list of sagas some of the oldest writings in Old Norse detailing stories from all over the scandinavian world from Russia and England to Denmark in Greenland it would not be long before Iceland became a bit of an aristocracy with power concentrated in a few prominent families which sounds awfully familiar Norway carried favour with one of these families to Sterling's who defeated all other clans on the island and brought Iceland under Norwegian Susannah D but power still largely remained with the old thing and the increasingly prominent clergy which wasn't an entirely bad thing because Christians love fish and boy that Iceland have a lot of fish this would become ever more important as crop yields were very difficult in the extreme climate by 1380 Iceland became part of the day led Coalition of the Kalmar Union which you'll remember from the episode of Denmark but the Kalmar Union as you recall eventually ended up splitting into an Iceland remained in the heart of Denmark Norway where they eventually gave up almost all of their autonomy under King Frederick the third which really sucked when Barbary pirates raided them for slaves in a weird twist of irony I always thought that slaves came to Iceland not from Iceland the union with Denmark also had a couple of other little side effects Christian the third imposed Lutheranism on his subjects which started a war with the Catholic Bishops who were defeated in 1550 and from then on the Reformation will completely take hold of Iceland you'll also recall the rivalry that Denmark had had with the Hanseatic League which really became more of a problem as Icelandic Goods increased in demand in Germany and Britain who were all too happy to trade with another Protestant nation this led the Danish monarchy to restrict all trade of Iceland to go through Denmark only in a sort of early mercantilism for most Icelanders it was pretty hard living and in all but meager wages and most of the wealth generated going to the merchants of Denmark and what little agriculture they had was almost completely destroyed in an eruption of the laki volcano leading to the death of up to a quarter of the population by starvation at almost every turn the Icelanders were sandbagged by the Danish government preventing any growth and prosperity for the people this extreme famine as well as the ideas of the European enlightenment started making Icelanders call for a change those calls got louder at the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars the 19th century would be Iceland's road to independence the Danish Norwegian Empire had allied with Napoleon during the coalition Wars and so found itself at the end of a cleaving tool in 1814 Iceland remained part of the Union but had its all thing suspended which as you can imagine they were not happy about it would take John Sigurd s'en a self-described history nerd and Icelandic romanticist to really get the ball rolling on independence and home rule was granted in 1874 but the story doesn't end there because European monarchy started to get a little concerned about the rampant destruction caused by nationalism in a little event called the First World War fine you're independent but I still get to be your king I'll be like the King of England and you'll be like our Canada [Music] another side note but 391 Icelanders did actually fight in the war under other nations flags among a few other concessions the Danes were also in charge of Iceland's defense which was a little hard for them to do in 1940 when Nazi Germany conquered them in a little under six hours her great Iceland was alone van Buren s'en set about creating an emergency government and a small Coast Guard but completely the opposite of what you may expect Iceland did end up getting invaded by the British story because they felt Iceland was too valuable to be captured by the Germans grumble grumble grumble grumble British occupation was then handed over to the United States both occupations revitalizing the Icelandic economy by some accounts the nation had a 100% employment rate during the war Icelandic casualties of the war were limited to a few civilian ships sunk by the Germans but as the war progressed the Icelanders had started to get a taste for going it alone and they liked it this led the whole thing to hold a plebiscite on whether or not to secede from Denmark which passed by 97% and so from 1943 Iceland would become a republic with bjornsen as its president the Danish king did send a letter of congratulations so I guess they're cool with it from there things were pretty quiet even when Iceland did come to the center of the world stage it was during the cod Wars in which the UK and Iceland fought over an expansion of Icelandic fishing rights the conflict began in 1958 and lasted until 1976 and resulted in an almost unheard of one single casualty and crucially an Icelandic victory Icelandic people are a really hard Bunch enduring living in the very fringes of human habitation enduring all manner of what Mother Nature has to throw at them freezing temperatures and storming seas active volcanoes and enough rain to make an Englishman jealous they provide a glimpse into the Viking past recording the lives and cultures of a romantic bygone era being so insulated from the rest of world by geography and by foreign rulers that it's not surprising how much of an isolated dynamic they developed Icelandic is even the closest living language to what the Vikings spoke and with some practice they can even read those old sagas without much difficulty as an island in the relative middle of nowhere they have thrived into the modern age and it's all thanks to that spirit of endurance and we can learn a thing or two from them like this series life on fire which you can watch over at curiosity stream and it's bundle deal with nebula ever since the eruption of this volcano in 2010 scientists have been striving to predict when the next eruption will take place and where since these Icelandic volcanoes lie right in the middle of one of the busiest shipping and air traffic corridors in the world and as the world becomes ever more connected so do these eruptions pose a greater risk to human life and the economy studying these volcanoes is absolutely fascinating and I definitely recommend checking this series out curiosity stream has thousands of titles and documentaries covering history science nature and a whole lot more for just $2.99 a month but if you use my link at curiosity stream comm /su ibh NE they'll not only get to try curiosity stream for free but you'll also get access to nebula while curiosity stream is a great place for high budget well produced documentaries myself and other educational channels built nebula as a place where we can try new things create new series that wouldn't 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Channel: Suibhne

Views: 437,203

Rating: 4.9355111 out of 5

Keywords: iceland, history, suibhne, animated history of iceland, iceland history, vikings, jon sigurdsson, Jón Sigurðsson, Leif Erikson, Erik the Red, greenland, norse, norway, Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson, laki, volcano

Id: JzYvFypr26U

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Llama_Shaman]

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[u/SirRichard]

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[u/klarlegaekkiarodur]

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