Eric the Red

Eric the Red, 10th-century Norse explorer who founded the first colonies in Greenland c.985. According to the Icelandic sagas, he was born in Norway but emigrated to Iceland. Arrested for manslaughter, he sailed westward in quest of a strange land sighted in 876 by the Norse searover Gunnbjorn Ulfsson; Eric named the place Greenland. His son, Leif Ericson, was also an adventurer. It is beleived that he landed in North America in 1000.

See also: Vikings.