The end of the 8th century saw the Vikings tear through monasteries across the coasts of Britain and Ireland. But by the mid-9th century, the Vikings had gained a taste for land and political power. Vikings: The Rise and Fall s1e2: The Great Heathen Army
For a long long period York is a Viking trading place. ibid. expert
Nothing brought wealth faster than forcing their captives into the highly profitable slave-trade. ibid.
Towards the end of the 8th century many Vikings stormed west raiding Britain’s unguarded monasteries before seizing control of important cities in England, and settling into an uneasy political alliance within Anglo-Saxon society. But some Vikings chose to go east. Vikings: The Rise and Fall III: As Far East as Baghdad
The slave-trade was a lucrative business in the east. They wanted their share of the profits. ibid.
The Vikings swarmed out from their unforgiving homeland in Scandinavia. One route for expansion remained: south, and the Frankish empire. Spilling out over modern-day France, Belgium and Germany, consumed by the scintillating promise of wealth, the Vikings ravaged and chopped their way to Paris. Vikings: The Rise and Fall IV: The Fall of Francia
As the Vikings raided, traded, plundered and pillaged their way through ninth-century Europe, trouble was brewing back home. Norway grappled with tumultuous political change, prising further Scandinavians from their icy homeland and forcing them across the high seas in search of a new better way of life. Their sturdy ships strove west. Vikings: The Rise and Fall V: The Wild West
The first European voyagers to set foot upon the sprawling prairies of America. ibid.
Two centuries of raids, trade and exploration, the Vikings spread across England and beyond, founding settlements and establishing new societies. But tenth century Norway and Denmark saw the rise of power-hungry kings. Vikings: The Rise and Fall IV: The Second Viking Age
The world would soon be forced to face the second Viking age. ibid.
1,200 years ago the north Atlantic was pristine and pure … Ancient people came to claim these lands too. People like the Vikings. This was a world they exploited. But it was a world they also nurtured and revered. Wild Way of the Vikings, Ewan McGregor reporting, BBC 2022
From the homelands in Scandinavia to the coast of north America, they traversed the ocean in the greatest adventure of the age. ibid.