The first known European born in the Americas, Greenland aside, was the Icelander Snorri, in Vinland around 1005.

1005

His mother Gudrid later made a pilgrimage to Rome.

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The event

• Norse in North America1021 · Vinland. Around 1000, Norse seafarers led by Leif Erikson reached North America, which they called Vinland. Tree-ring analysis of wood from L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland proves Norse presence there in 1021, nearly 500 years before Columbus.

11th century

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• 1002 · 1010 The two great women of Japanese classical literature did not get on. Murasaki Shikibu, author of Genji, wrote that Sei Shōnagon of The Pillow Book was 'dreadfully conceited' and littered her writing with Chinese characters.
• 1002 An Icelandic lawspeaker lost his job because his voice was too weak.
• 1004 Europe first saw the fork as a sin. When a Byzantine bride married into the Doge’s family around 1004 and ate with a golden fork, Saint Peter Damian denounced her decadence.

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