The Vikings, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards were the most famous among early explorers.

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.

Hoards dating to the Viking occupation of London in 871 / 2 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend, and Waterloo Bridge ; these finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings.

The Vikings were making their second Super Bowl appearance after also finishing the regular season with a 12-2 record, and posting postseason victories over the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys.

The Eagles were making their first Super Bowl appearance after posting a 12-4 regular season record and postseason victories over the Minnesota Vikings and the Dallas Cowboys

With such vast technological improvements, the Vikings began making increasingly more ocean voyages, as their ships were infinitely more sea worthy.

It has been celebrated since the times of the Vikings by visiting healing water wells and making a large bonfire to ward away evil spirits.

At the time, the town was on the edge of a deep bay of the North Sea, making it vulnerable to raids by the Vikings, who attacked and destroyed it in the 9th century.

In Week 17 facing the Vikings, Peppers was awarded a. 5 sack by the league, that he originally split with Matt Toeaina, giving him his 100th career sack making him the twenty eighth player in NFL history to achieve that milestone.

Although this novel is about King Alfred, it gives due credit to Ealdorman Odda for this victory, although the description of the battle may not be very accurate, showing the Vikings as making a landing at night and being defeated immediately on the landing ground.

As with Cornwall in 722, the Vikings tactically helped their Breton allies by making devastating pillaging raids on the Frankish kingdoms.

Fletcher earned NFC Defensive Player of the Week honors for the first time in his career after making 14 tackles ( 9 solo ) and tying a career-high with two sacks against the Minnesota Vikings on November 10.

Vikings 1 through 7 were slightly longer ( about 15 m, 49 ft ) than the V-2, but with a straight cylindrical body only 32 in ( 81 cm ) in diameter, making the rocket quite slender.

By the end of 1957, with the breakup of the " Dell " Vikings, Kripp Johnson returned to the original group, making them a sextet.

On October 30, 2007 during Mike and Mike in the Morning, Michael Kim in a SportsCenter update reported that George was interested in making another comeback, this time with the Minnesota Vikings, a team where he once had some success.

On January 3, 2011, the Vikings and Leslie Frazier reached an agreement making him the permanent head coach.

After the 1997 season, Robinson joined the Atlanta Falcons in 1998, and after making a game-saving play in the NFC Championship game ( breaking up an otherwise certain winning touchdown to Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss ) made it back to the Super Bowl ( the Falcons ' first appearance ever ) for the third year in a row, and again faced the Broncos.

However, the Vikings lacked both the equipment necessary to undertake a siege against the burh and a developed doctrine of siegecraft, having tailored their methods of fighting to rapid strikes and unimpeded retreats to well defended fortifications.

Neither Alfred's reformed fyrd nor his burhs alone would have afforded a sufficient defence against the Vikings ; together, however, they robbed the Vikings of their major strategic advantages: surprise and mobility.

At the decisive Battle of Leuven in September 891, he defeated an invading force of the Northmen, or Vikings, essentially ending their invasions on that front.

In 2001, the Panthers won their season opener 24 – 13 over the Vikings, but set a ( then ) NFL record by losing 15 consecutive games to finish the season 1 – 15.

Dallas ended their playoff run after a hard divisional playoff loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

Scandinavian Norsemen, called " Vikings " in Western Europe and " Varangians " in the East, combined piracy and trade in their roamings over much of Northern Europe.

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.

Viking navigational techniques are not well understood, but historians postulate that the Vikings probably had some sort of primitive astrolabe and used the stars to plot their course.

The Vikings play their home games at the Mall of America Field at Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis as they have since 1982 ( a bill was passed in May 2012 to build a new stadium for the team, which is expected to open by the 2016 season ).

The Vikings won their first regular season game, defeating the Chicago Bears 37 – 13 on Opening Day.

The losing continued throughout much of the 60s as the Vikings had a combined record of 32 wins, 59 losses, and 7 ties in their first 7 seasons with only one winning season ( 8 – 5 – 1 in 1964 ).

In, that stingy defense earned the Vikings their first Central Division title and their first playoff berth.

The Vikings addressed the problem by drafting running back Chuck Foreman with their first pick in the 1973 draft.

The Vikings won their first 9 games of and finished the season with a 12 – 2 record.

The Vikings then advanced to their second Super Bowl in franchise history, Super Bowl VIII, against the Miami Dolphins at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas.

The Vikings played in their second straight Super Bowl, Super Bowl IX ( 3rd overall ), losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 16 – 6, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans on January 12, 1975.

The Vikings played in Super Bowl XI, their third Super Bowl ( 4th overall ) in 4 years, against the Oakland Raiders at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on January 9, 1977.

The Vikings, however, couldn't break their bad luck in the Super Bowl.

There was no more playoff magic as the Rams finally defeated the Vikings, 34 – 10 in Los Angeles after having lost in their previous four playoff matchups ( in 1969, ' 74, ' 76 and ' 77 ).