Reykjavik History of Iceland
Your comprehensive guide to Everything Reykjavik
Soon, Norwegian Vikings began to make their way to Iceland. It was Ingólfur Arnarsson a Norwegian Chieftain that first became a permanent settler in Iceland. According to the story, he threw two carved pillars overboard as he reached the shores of Iceland, vowing to settle wherever they would come to shore. Eventually he found the pillars in the southern peninsula, today known as Reykjanesskagi. He settled there in 874, in an area he named Reykjavik (Bay of smoke) due to the geothermal steam rising from the earth.
Shorty after the settlement of Iceland, Viking and Celtic settlers founded the world´s first republican parliament, the Althingi. They formed a constitution based on individual freedom, land ownership and inheritance laws. They also founded a Supreme Court that was to meet annually.
Christianity was peacefully adopted by a vote in the year 1000.
Over the years Iceland was ruled by both Norway and Denmark. Denmark gave Iceland a control of its own finances in 1874, followed by independence in 1918. Iceland formally became an independent republic on June 17th 1944.
In 1875, Askja volcano erupted with horrific consequences for this tiny nation. The fallout from the eruption devastated the economy and caused widespread famine. The ashfall was heavy enough to kill livestock and caused land to be unusable for farming. The eruption was so tremendous that ash was wind-blown all the way to Sweden and Norway. This caused a massive emigration of Icelanders, mostly to Canada, when almost 20% of the population left. Today, there are communities in Canada that have Icelandic names and where inhabitants can trace their roots to Iceland.
During World War II, Iceland was first held by the British forces that later released it to the United States Army. During the war Iceland was mostly free of combat but Icelandic ships were occasionally attack by U-boats and fighting planes that managed to get into the Icelandic air space. During and after World War II the US Army had an army base in Keflavik and built roads, bridges, airports among other things for their use that came in handy for the locals at the same time. Iceland’s economy started to gain strength following World War II, in part due to the presence of the US Army. During the Cold War Iceland remained vital allies to the US, as it was the perfect ground to keep track of submarines that belonged to the USSR, but were cruising the North Atlantic and arctic waters. The US Army base closed in 2006.
