The Reykjavík Grapevine's Almost Completely True History of Iceland
Season 01: The Alternative History of Iceland
What if Icelanders had settled in North America during the Viking Age? What if Iceland was wiped out by a volcano and the survivors moved to Denmark? What if Iceland had been occupied by the Nazis instead of the Allies? What if the Nordic Countries had united? And what if the economic collapse had been averted?
Listen to historians Valur Gunnarsson and Jón Trausti Sigurðarson talk about Icelandic history as it happened and what could have been.
Produced by Sindri Freyr Steinsson
Season 02: The Last Viking Mystery
What happened to the Viking colony in Greenland, which strangely disappeared after almost 500 years? Join us in a voyage of discovery that takes us from the home of Eric the Red in Western Iceland to the Viking settlement in North America and the frozen wastes of Greenland as we try to solve the greatest mystery the North has even known.
Episodes
11 episodes
The Viking History of Greenland: A US-EU Cold War over Greenland? (Bonus Episode)
In this Bonus episode, hosts Valur Gunnarsson and Jón Trausti Sigurðarson discuss the president elect Donald Trump's recent remarks that the USA should acquire Greenland. Greenland and Iceland are not members of the EU but are on t...
The Viking History of Greenland: Leifur Eriksson: Losing and Finding America
You can also watch this podcast as a video by pressing this link.Icelanders discovered America, and lost it again. Or did they? How long did the Viking voyages to the new continent l...
The Viking History of Greenland: Erik the Red; the Worst Neighbour in History
The Last Viking Mystery: Erik the Red; the worst neighbour in historyThe Vikings sailed across the North Atlantic, from Norway to Iceland to Greenland and all the way to North America. They only stayed for a few years in the New World bu...
The Alternative History of Iceland: Could the Icelandic Economic Collapse Have Been Averted?
What happened in the autumn of 2008 that made the country's whole economy seemingly go under? What had brought a country with very little experience of banking to believe it could bethe financial capital of the world? And how...
The Alternative History of Iceland: What if the Nazis had invaded Iceland in World War II?
Iceland had a rather comfortable war, being occupied by the British and later Americans. Yet, it was a time that changed everything, the beginning of modernity and Iceland emerged from the war as one of the richest countries in the ...
The Alternative History of Iceland: What If the Nordic Countries Had United?
The Nordic Countries are prosperous but small countries on Europe's periphery, peaceful now but given to feuding in the past. What if they had united? Would they play a greater part on the world stage as a single power? Could a united Nordics h...
The Alternative History of Iceland: What If the Russian Revolution Had Come to Iceland?
In the autumn of 1921, Ólafur Friðriksson came back home from Moscow where he had attended the 9th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With him he had a boy whom he intended to adopt. When the 15- year-old was diagnosed w...
The Alternative History of Iceland: What If Iceland Had Joined the British Empire?
In Tasmania, off the coast of Australia, there is a grave marked "King of Iceland." Even more bizarrely, the title of the person was actually real. Sort of. During the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark and Britain found themselves figh...
The Alternative History of Iceland: What If Iceland Had Been Wiped Out By a Volcano?
For almost a thousand years, nature had been torturing the poor residents of Iceland. Then, in 1783, it decided to finish the job. A volcano erupted that was felt around the world, nowhere more so than in Iceland itself. About a third of the po...
The Alternative History of Iceland: What If Vikings Had Colonized North America?
There is little arguing with the maxim attributed to Oscar Wilde that Icelanders are the smartest people in the world, they found America but had the good sense to lose it again. Wisely or not, how exactly did Icelanders manage to misplace a wh...
The Alternative History of Iceland: What If Vikings Had Conquered the World?
The year 1066 is remembered for the Normans conquering England, which was to be the last successful invasion of that country (so far). Just a few weeks earlier, however, Vikings from Norway also invaded England but were repulsed at Stamford Bri...