Profile of the Day: Helge Ingstad
On December 30, 1899, Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad was born in Meråker, Norway. Ingstad and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine, were the first to prove that the Vikings had reached North America 500 years before Christopher Columbus.
In 1960, Ingstad discovered the remnants of a Viking settlement in the L’Anse aux Meadows of Newfoundland, Canada. The settlement has been dated to approximately 1,000 years ago and is the only known site of a Norse or Viking village in Canada. With its discovery, Ingstad and Stine were able to prove that the Vikings had in fact arrived in North America before Columbus.
Ingstad died on March 29, 2001 at the age of 101.
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