Vikings reached America at about the time Polynesians reached Hawaii.
Norsemen were felling trees in Newfoundland in 1021, and radiocarbon dates put the settlement of Hawaii around 1000–1200.
The events
- 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.
- Polynesians settle Hawaiic. 1000 · Hawaiʻi. Polynesian navigators in double-hulled canoes, steering by stars, swells and birds, reached the Hawaiian Islands. The date is debated; modern radiocarbon studies point to roughly 1000–1200.
More amazing facts
- 999 Pope Sylvester II's love of mathematics earned him a sorcerer's reputation.
- 1000 One elephant bird egg held as much as 160 chicken eggs.
- 1000 · 1057 The oldest book of Rus was found only in 2000: three wax tablets with psalms from early 11th-century Novgorod.
- 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.