News Tagged with “History”

Boys in East Fjords find live WW II shell

28 Aug Explosives experts from the Icelandic Coast Guard were called out this week, at the request of the East Iceland Police, after four boys, aged 11-12, found a strange object.

.An illustration to show how the ancient farm could have been situated.

Ninth century animal bones discovered in remote West Fjords

10 Aug Animal bones dating from the ninth century have been discovered in Sandvík, Selárstströnd in Kaldraneshreppur district, a remote area at the tip of the West Fjords of Iceland. Archeologists will be digging in the area for the next few weeks.

Kári Stefánsson, CEO of deCODE, anthropologist Sunna Ebensardóttir and anthropologist Agnar Helgason.

deCode Genetics publish new findings on the founding of the Icelandic population

31 May In a study published today, scientists at deCODE Genetics report new findings about the founding of the Icelandic population, and its subsequent evolution, based on ancient DNA. The study appears today in the online edition of Science.

Coach driver drives into ancient turf farm and causes damage

3 May A coach driver for a tourist coach drove into a wall of Glaumbær, a historic turf built farm in Skagafjörður, North Iceland,and left a large hole before driving off.

Eldgjá is in the South Highlands of Iceland.

10th century Eldgjá eruption thought to have influenced Christianisation of Iceland

19 Mar New research sugggests that an eruption in Eldgjá had an influence on the change to religion in Iceland in the tenth century finds a team of scientists at Cambridge University. Iceland converted from paganism to Christianity around the year 1000.

Magnús Ágústsson is 95 years old and believes he will never know why that RAF plane shot at him when he was a teenager.

Icelandic man remembers RAF plane shooting at him 75 years ago in remote farmland

8 Dec Magnús Ágústsson, a teenager at the time, was going to gather sheep in Bieringstangi in Vatnsleysuströnd on the Reykjanes peninsula 75 years ago when he saw a plane flying low over his farm and going straight towards him.

Archaeologist Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir has for years researched the cloisters of medieval times in Iceland.

Is the cloister door found?

26 Oct 2017 "Important evidences point to that the church door of Valþjófsstaður "Valþjófsstaðarhurðin" originally came from a cloister that chieftain Jón Loftsson founded at Keldur, Rangárvellir in the year 1193," Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir says about her new book that has been just published by The Historical Society and The National Museum of Iceland. The book's title is: In Search of the Cloisters - Five centuries of Cloister Life in Iceland.

A drawing of a proposed Viking farm which will rise in the area.

Viking world to rise in Mosfellsdalur

23 Oct 2017 A new Viking world will rise in Mosfellsdalur in the vicinity of Reykjavik. The area will feature a church, farms, animal pens and a workshop to show what life was like in Iceland in the 11th and 12th century.

Austurbæjarbíó, an old cinema on Snorrabraut is now an exhibition space.

An old downtown cinema is transformed into exhibition for tourists

20 Sep 2017 Austurbæjarbíó, or the East Reykjavik cinema on Snorrabraut has now been turned into an exhibition space for "Tales of Iceland," an exhibition on Icelandic history, nature and society.

19th century Icelandic costume donated to national museum from Canada

4 Sep 2017 The National Museum of Iceland received an ornate national costume as a gift from the Icelandic Canadian Club of British Columbia. The costume belonged to an Icelandic woman who emigrated to Canada at the end of the 19th century.

The ships sailed in memory of the men who died in 1942.

A convoy of battleships sails up Hvalfjörður to commemorate the PQ17 convoy in 1942

26 Jun 2017 Six battleships and one submarine sailed from Faxaflói bay from Reykjavík up Hvalfjörður on Friday to commemorate that 75 years have passed since the allied convoy PQ17 was destroyed by Nazi submarines and ships in WWII.

It's tradition that women that own the Icelandic national costume wear it on the 17th of June.

Today is Iceland’s national day!

17 Jun 2017 Today is Iceland's national day! Often only referred to as ‘the seventeenth of June’, there are festivities all over the country on this day, with balloons, sweets, music and everything else you can ask from a festival. But what's the story behind this day?

The sword was found in a boat grave located by the sea, which had already removed a part of the boat.

Iceland Viking Grave: “A bigger find than we believed”

16 Jun 2017 “The two boats and the size of the grave is on a bigger scale than we’ve seen in the past years. We don’t know we might find there,” says archaeologist Hildur Gestsdóttir who is leading the excavation where a Viking sword and two boat graves were found.

The excavation at Hrísbrú in Mosfellsdalur.

A chieftain's hut possibly to rise in Mosfellsdalur

13 Jun 2017 A group of people have applied to raise a chieftain's longhouse, church, smithy and a scriptorium in Mosfellsdalur, not far from Reykjavik. The aim is to relay a time in Iceland's history which the group believes to be the height of Icelandic culture, the Middle Ages.

Donald Trump is related to most Icelanders and Danish and Norwegian Royalty

24 Jan 2017 President Donald J. Trump is the direct descendant of Hakon V King of Norway according to Icelandic genealogist Oddur F. Helgason. Mr. Trump is also related to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Icelandic President Guðni Th. Johannesson of Iceland, and in fact almost all Icelanders.