Second Viking site in North America discovered?

[Habbaku]

Languish delivers. 

[celedhring]

Nah. I like the fact it gets people discussing history. Also reveals that Columbus was a weirdo and psycho.

Everyone was a weirdo back then by modern standards.  I don't understand why Columbus gets singled out. 

Anyway it's considered the ethnic holiday for Eyetalian-Americans.  Let it stay.

It's also Spain's national day. I admit it was a bit of a shock to see all the Italian flags parading around New York - in my first year there - in what back home is Spain's big one. 

[Norgy]

If I had to choose a religion, it'd be Catholicism. Francis is a rockstar. And it has confession.

[Razgovory]

Also, pancakes.

[Norgy]

Is there a low-carb church?

[derspiess]

Elaborate.

Highly educated and skilled at rhetoric.

Sometimes in favour of liberal principles and the interests of the poor.

Socialist revolutionaries, to be more precise.

[derspiess]

It's also Spain's national day. I admit it was a bit of a shock to see all the Italian flags parading around New York - in my first year there - in what back home is Spain's big one. 

If we had had a large Spanish migration here (and now that I think of it, too bad we didn't-- there is a distinct lack of Spanish restaurants in the US) it would have been interesting to see the Guidos and Spaniards fighting over the holiday. 

[The Brain]

If I had to choose a religion, it'd be Catholicism. Francis is a rockstar. And it has confession.

You mean he's a douche?

[citizen k]

Elaborate.

Highly educated and skilled at rhetoric.

Sometimes in favour of liberal principles and the interests of the poor.

Socialist revolutionaries, to be more precise.

And Gonzaga Bulldogs.

[11B4V]

Is there a low-carb church?

Scientology.

[Eddie Teach]

What's wrong with the Society of Jesus?

The same thing that's wrong with you, Malthus, and Martinus. 

[Siege]

Wasn't this thread about vikings or something?

[Norgy]

Probably. But they weren't vikings.

"Going viking" was going to plunder and pillage.
The rather huge population growth in the Nordic countries after 700 led to a huge hunger for new land, so Norse people of various countries that exist nowadays went to find new places to live. Lots of Norse from what is now Sweden went east to the areas around Novgorod and founded Holmgard, and further down the Don river to Kiev.
The ones from what is Denmark today went west and really made the land now known as England suffer.
The Norse in Norway colonised the isles in the North Sea, parts of Ireland, settled Iceland. And probably either inter-married or genocided whatever people found on those desolate isles.
The expeditions westwards towards Greenland and North America were made by Norse settlers in Iceland and then Greenland.

While the planet was making agriculture possible on Greenland in the 12th century and onwards, there was still not enough arable land, so I find it likely that settlers carried on westwards even after New Foundland.
The Norse settlers on Greenland were like most Norse; proud. So having cows unsuitable for grassing on what little grassland there was, was much more honourable than having sheep or goats, which would have been far more suitable.
Settlements in North America probably died out due to three possible explanations:
1) Massacres by the natives. Not unlikely, but the Norse were good at co-opting local customs. The more likely scenario is that they just became part of the native Americans after a while.
2) Trying to find fields for cows. New Foundland, while I have never been there, looks like a poor place to raise cattle. I am sure they raised pigs, but pigs, like humans eat anything. Meat was important in certain settings for the Norse.
3) Disease. It's possible they all just succumbed to scurvy or something.

[MadImmortalMan]

Strange they never managed to occupy the Irish countryside then. The island can support something like 1 cow per acre.

[Norgy]

They settled around where Dublin is today and further south.

In Ireland, they met Celts ready to fight.