Notable explorers include: the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Polynesians, the Phoenicians, Phytheas, Herodotus, the Vikings, The Portuguese, and Christopher Columbus.

The hereditary chieftains of Umhall were the O ' Malleys, recorded in the area in 814 AD when they successfully repelled an onslaught by the Vikings in Clew Bay.

Although not mentioned by Asser or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably also paid the Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.

In such cases, the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces.

Alfred's burh system posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892 and successfully stormed a half-made, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia.

They were meant to keep in check the Basques and defend the mouth of the Garonne from the Vikings when the latter appeared c. 844 in the region of Bordeaux.

Gailey led the team to two playoff appearances with a 10 – 6 record in 1998 and an NFC East championship, but the Cowboys were defeated in the playoffs by the Arizona Cardinals 20-7 ; after an 8 – 8 season in 1999 ( during which Irvin suffered a career-ending spinal injury in a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles ) ending in another playoff loss ( this time to the Minnesota Vikings 27-10 ), he was fired and became the first Cowboys coach who did not take the team to a Super Bowl.

The winners of the 2010 tournament were Toronto's Salming Vikings floorball club.

Raids by the Vikings were frequent after about AD 800, and the Norsemen took control of large parts of what is now England.

However, by then the Vikings were almost certainly well established in Orkney and Shetland, and it is probable that many other non-recorded raids occurred before this.

Certainly in North Britain the Vikings were one reason behind the formation of the Kingdom of Alba, which eventually evolved into Scotland.

Led by Rollo, some Vikings had settled in Normandy and were granted the land, first as counts and then as dukes, by King Charles the Simple, in order to protect the land from other raiders.

There were also five teams which the Texans had never beaten: the Baltimore Ravens ( 0-5 in regular season, 0-1 in playoffs ), Minnesota Vikings ( 0-2 ), New York Jets ( 0-5 ), Philadelphia Eagles ( 0-3 ) and San Diego Chargers ( 0-4 ).

The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the " Daft Days " as they were sometimes called in Scotland.

Contact between Sweden and what is now Finland was considerable even during pre-Christian times – the Vikings were known to Finns both due to their participation in commerce and plundering.

In the years 1953 – 66 the Colts played in the NFL Western Conference ( also known as division ), but were never known to have a significant rivalry with any of the other franchises in that alignment, seeing as they were the eastern-most team and the rest of the division included the Great Lakes franchises Green Bay, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, and after 1961, the Minnesota Vikings.

Industrial researchers were apparently built like Vikings and aggressive.

Longships were sea vessels made and used by the Vikings from the Nordic countries for trade, commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age although scientific analysis of the oak timber shows at least one well known ship was built in Dublin, Ireland.

The Vikings were experts in judging speed and wind direction, and in knowing the current and when to expect high and low tides.

The Vikings were major contributors to the shipbuilding technology of their day.

They currently participate in the North Division of the National Football Conference ( NFC ); prior to that the Vikings were in the NFC Central Division, and before that they were in the NFL's Western Conference Central Division.

Coincidentally or not, the teams from Ole Haugsrud's high school, Central High School in Superior, WI, were also called the Vikings.

In, the Vikings again won the Central Division with a 9 – 5 record and advanced to their 4th NFC Championship Game in 5 years, but were defeated by the eventual Super Bowl Champion Cowboys, 23 – 6, at Texas Stadium.

On December 20, 2010, Hester set an NFL record for most touchdowns on a punt or kickoff return with his 14th career return coming against the Minnesota Vikings.

Some of the most successful examples of these Biblical and historical spectaculars include The Ten Commandments ( 1956 ), The Vikings ( 1958 ), Ben-Hur ( 1959 ), Spartacus ( 1960 ) and El Cid ( 1961 ).

Although the white jerseys of the Minnesota Vikings at the time also had a similar striping pattern and continued as such ( as well as the throwbacks the New England Patriots wore in the Thanksgiving game against the Detroit Lions in 2002, though the Patriots later wore the same throwbacks in 2009 with truncated stripes and in 2010 became their official alternate uniform ), the Colts and most college teams with this striping pattern did not make this adjustment.

The team MVP that season was Joe Kapp, who threw for seven touchdowns against the Baltimore Colts – still an all-time NFL record ; however, Kapp refused to accept the award, stating, " There is not one most valuable Viking ... there are 40 most valuable Vikings!

Though they were the road team, the Vikings were actually favored to win the game ( since most considered their 11 – 2 record with Culpepper more indicative than their 0 – 3 record when he was out ).

Ragnar has been working for the Vikings since 1994 and claims to be the most widely-recognized mascot in the world.

The most common postseason rival for the Saints are the Minnesota Vikings.

The Saints and the Vikings have played each other three times in the postseason, with the most recent being the 2009 NFC Championship Game.

They tied the Oilers and the Minnesota Vikings for the most rushing yards allowed during the regular season ( 4. 7 yards per attempt ), and ranked just 19th in fewest yards allowed ( 5, 759 ).

One possible reason for this expedition was because Alfred needed aid in his defense against the Danes or Vikings, who had taken over most of England.

The most important primary sources for information on the Vikings are different sorts of contemporary evidence from Scandinavia and the various regions in which the Vikings were active.

The Vikings sailed most of the North Atlantic, reaching south to North Africa and east to Russia, Constantinople and the Middle East, as looters, traders, colonists, and mercenaries.

Non-Scandinavian Christians are responsible for most surviving accounts of the Vikings and, consequently, a strong possibility for bias exists.

The Vikings lose control of most of the modern Netherlands.

Viking expeditions ( blue ): depicting the immense breadth of their voyages throughout most of Europe, North Atlantic and Mediterranean The Vikings from Sweden mainly traveled east into Russia.

During a sustained campaign of repeated attack between 865 and 878 the Danish Vikings overran most of the English Kingdoms such as Northumbria, Eastern Mercia, East Anglia and even threatened the very existence of Wessex.

The most widely known and far reaching pirates in medieval Europe were the Vikings, warriors and looters from Scandinavia who raided mainly between the 8th and 12th centuries, during the Viking Age in the Early Middle Ages.

The Danish Vikings were most active in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy where they raided, conquered and settled ( their earliest settlements included sites in the Danelaw, Ireland and Normandy ).

* Rolf Danielsen, Ståle Dyrvik, Tore Grønlie, Knut Helle, Edgar Hovland: Norway: A History from the Vikings to Our Own Times ( The most recent single volume academic history of Norway in English ) Scandinavian University Press 1995 ISBN 978-82-00-21803-6

By the 9th century the Gaels had been joined by Norse Vikings who founded towns such as Cork, Waterford and Limerick, for the most part incorporated into a maritime empire by the Dynasty of Ivar, who periodically would threaten Munster with conquest in the next century.

While some enthusiasts claim the dish has been consumed since the time of the Vikings, most believe that its origins lie in the 16th-century Netherlands.

Until the 1970s most scholarly writing concerning the Vikings ' activities in Ireland, as well as the career of Brian Boru, accepted the claims of Cogadh Gaedhil re Gallaibh at face value.