Viking Voyages
Vikings travelled far and wide in an age when that was very exceptional.
After being exiled from Iceland Eric the Red and his son Lief Ericson discovered America. The Rus traveled to Kiev and Byzantium.
According to old Norse Chronicles Eric and Lief visited Greenland, and Vinland (1001 A.D.). These lands are usually considered by modern scholars to be Greenland as it is seen on maps today, and America. With the icy barrens of Greenland perhaps being given that non-representative name to encourage settlers. Although some claim the northern climates were warmer then. It is also possible that the original Greenland might have been America, but Vinland almost certainly was. Archeologists have found Viking artifacts in Canada (including stone foundations), the Great Lakes (sunken longboat), and New England (Viking trinkets). Thus it is often said that the Vikings, not Columbus discovered America. Some suggest that both the Welsh and the Irish may have also visited America. It is possible that Saint Brendan of Ireland and Prince Maddog of Wales also discovered America, but such ideas, although fascinating, are difficult to prove.
In the east the Vikings sailed as far as Constantinople, probably mostly on rivers through Russia. A group of Norsemen called the Rus settled in Kiev, and modern Russia is said to take its name from them. In 860 Vikings sacked Constantinople which they called Miklagard, or the Great City. The Rus also founded the City of Novgorod far north of Kiev around 866. Vikings were eventually bought off by Byzantine gold, and they went into the service of the Emperor as the Varangian Guard, and served for centuries (Varangian basically means "the sworn").
None of this could have happened without the longboat. If you could get there by water from Scandinavia, the Vikings and their longboats were probably there. However, rounding Africa and making the first permanent settlements in America would be left to the Portuguese and Spanish and the Caravel. The Vikings were probably deterred in Africa by the inhospitable climate and lack of towns to plunder, and in America by their colonizing base being the sparsely populated islands of Greenland and Iceland.
