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Articles on Vikings

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(Clockwise from left): American civil war soldier Frances Hook; 19th century Dahomey women soldiers; defending a besieged German city in 1615; 18th century British soldier Hannah Snell and Union soldier Frances Clayton. Sources: Wikimedia Commons, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbuettel

Friday essay: the forgotten female soldiers who fought long ago – and why their stories matter today

Fighting in sieges, an army of crack female troops, cross-dressing as male soldiers: women have survived and thrived as part of the war machine. But they’re rarely included in military histories.
Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Marvel Studios’ The Dark World from 2013. Maximum Film / Alamy

Why Old Norse myths endure in popular culture

Ancient tales of gods and heroes and medieval Scandinavia help us make sense of things like masculinity, betrayal, revenge and the end of the world.
As this reconstructed village shows, Vikings made it as far as Newfoundland during the Medieval warm period. Wikimedia/Dylan Kereluk

Climate explained: what was the Medieval warm period?

During the European Middle Ages, parts of the world experienced warming similar to that between 1960 to 1990. But the rising temperatures we’re observing now are global and exceed the past record.
‘The Meeting of Two Worlds,’ a sculpture at L'Anse aux Meadows, commemorates the meeting of Vikings and Native Americans around the year 1000. D. Gordon E. Robertson/Wikimedia Commons

Globalization really started 1,000 years ago

The allure of novel goods was so strong that it triggered 1,000 years of trade and interactions among people from different places, but there were limits on globalization then that no longer exist,

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