Leif Erikson Research Paper

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Leif Erikson

Many people may think that Christopher Columbus was the first person to discover North America. What if I told you that that title belongs to someone else? This title belonged to none other than the famous explorer Leif Erikson. Leif Erikson was a famous viking explorer who was said to be the first person to discover North America and was the son of another famous explorer called Erik the Red. He was also converted to Christianity by a famous viking warrior called Olaf I Tryggrason. When Leif sailed home he converted his mother, Thjodhild, into Christianity who then built Greenland’s first Christian church at Brattahild. No one really knows when or where Leif Erikson was born, but the theory is that he was born in Iceland around …show more content…
So he lived with a person called Thyrker, who was captured by Erik the Red. So Lief was sent with Thyrker and was taught many things like how to read, ways to trade, and how to write runes. He was also taught old sagas,plant studies,and how to use weapons. When he was considered a man, he sailed back to Iceland with newfound knowledge. When he arrived home, Erik the Red’s house had grown and now there were more herds and more slaves in his household. Then when Leif was invited to the Thing, he got into a fight and killed a man. For this, he was banished for three years. During these three years he started exploring and he went to Greenland and settled there for a while. Then he sailed to Norway and was converted to Christianity by a viking called Olaf Tryggvason who was also the king of Norway. Olaf converted Leif to Christianity and encouraged him to convert other Greenland settlers to Christianity. On his way back to Greenland, he was caught in a storm and was blown off course and discovered North America. When Leif discovered North America, he decided to call it Vinland, the land of wine. He called it this because it had lots of grapes and it had good building timber. When Leif made it to Greenland, there were no writings that said he ever
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