Anubis said:
Okey... Humm.... something about Iceland....
My history knowledge SUCKS. I don't know much. But I'll share a bit of what I remember.

Simple version (from a msn conversation between me and Tom Henrik):

More complicated version:

Iceland was found around the year 900 AD, by Norwegian vikings. On their way to Iceland, (then known as Gar?arshólmi and Sn?land), they stopped by in the UK and took slaves. So basically, most Icelanders today come from vikings and slaves.
Back then the country was covered with trees. Then the men came, and ruined it all. Now we have few really small forests.

There was this Icelandic/Norwegian guy, Leifur "the lucky" Eiríksson, who is said to have found America. Although most people say Columbus did. Leifur was the son of Eiríkur "the Red", who found Greenland. Eiríkur was an outcast, because he killed some guy, I think. I saw the cartoon few years ago :bleh:

In the year 1000, Icelanders took Christianity. They believed in the Nordic mythology. It was quite a big step for them to take the Christian belief, because of so many strong traditions in the heathen laws, you HAD to revenge.

Example:
A kills your brother.
You have to kill A.
A's brother, B, has to kill you.
Your friend, C, has to kill B.
etc etc.

And with Christianity, this was illegal.

Ok, now ends the era that I know most about. The next few hundreds of years are kinda blurry :whistle:

In the past few hundreds of years, Iceland has belonged to Norway and Denmark. We got independant from Denmark in the year 1944, December 1st. But we celebrate the independance day on the birthday of the guy who made it all possible. Jón Sigur?sson, born on June the 17th.
We have a president, called Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. He's really cool, and a funny guy. I've met him couple of times, my band plays for him a lot (when foreign presidents and some guys come visit him), and he invites us to cocktail parties and stuff instead (plus loooots of money :evil: )

Iceland has about 300.000 inhabitants. Half of them live in the capital city, Reykjavík. 800 inhabitants in my hometown :whistle: . I live in Reykjavík now, though.

Goverment
The Icelandic goverment is Right oriented, although there are a lot of traces from the communism. My school, for example, used to be a commie school (is still, in a way). Our school logo is a red fist, our schoolsong used to be the Internationalin (now it's a song about Jesus :blink: ). My band is also a communist band. Our logo is the red star with the initials of the band name. We always play on 1st of May, in a parade, play the Internationalin (that's one helluva song!!!).
I think that most young people (at least young people I know) are left oriented. And most people I know hate the goverment.

Religion
Most Icelandic people are Lutherian. Although I don't know many people who actually do something about it. Maybe..... 2 families!!

School system
Icelandic kids have to go to school from the age 6 untill they're 16. Then they can choose if they go to college or not (usually 4 years), and then they can take university. Children aged 6-16 get education for free, except they go to private schools. There are three private schools, if I'm not mistaken. Two of them are free, the third (for 13-16 year olds) costs 350 € a month. Only 20 students in the whole school LOL
Colleges are pretty cheap, I pay 80€ per semester.

Stupid stuff
We have to be 21 to drink beer :ranting:
But heck, who gives? :cheers:

Pictures
http://www.abandonia.com/~puffin/Patro/reykjavik.jpg
Part of the city centre. To the left you can see the only catholic church in Iceland. Below it is the city hall.

http://www.abandonia.com/~puffin/Patro/tjornin.jpg
The pond in the city centre. It's really really disgusting.

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/c...or/iscolor.gif
Map of Iceland ;)


Well... If anybody has read this through, I admire you. If nobody has, I can't blame you.
If I remember some more stuff, I'll post it :max:

That's very interesting. I'm looking forward to know more, should you find something. :ok:

Thanks a lot! :) :cheers:

It's really interesting.

Is this really you (got idea after Tom's speach about history of Iceland LOL )

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-...yda-small2.jpg

Here is some stuff I found about Iceland. It's really interesting to learn about different countries and cultures.

Puffin - thank you I've learnt a lot. :D :D

Anubis - equally good but Puffin had better pictures. :D :D

I just figured out that i know your history from a book :D

Wow, I never knew that so few people lived in Iceland. I can almost picture just about everyone knowing everyone. Iceland's entire population isn't even the size of the city I live in. I want to learn more about Iceland, especially the vikings =)

I'm also from Iceland, so I guess I'm qualified to post some information here. :max:

Let me start by correcting a small "fact-error" (I think):
Hmm.... it's a bit mixed up there, we became "full-powered" (whatever the word is, "fullvalda") in 1918, on december 1st and founded a "republic" on june 17th in 1944. But this day was indeed chosen because it is Jón Sigur?sson's birthday.

If you understand Icelandic, you can read about it here:
More info

More information on Iceland:

• Our first minister (is that the correct word?) was Hannes Hafstein, in 1904.
• Beer was outlawed for many years (since 192Xor193X - March 1st 1989)
• It is against the law to advertise beer, but there are many beer commercials on TV anyway. (They put "Léttöl" in tiny letters in the lower left corner)

"Léttöl" = "Light beer" (or something)

Of course, if there are any errors in the above, please correct me :D

(Man this post took a long time! 1 1/2 hour :zzzzz:)

Yeah, you know, this part is a part of history I've never understood to the fullest. I just go downtown on the 17th of June and celebrate. And I remember in 9th grade or something, we had this book called Jón Sigur?sson. I read it, but I don't remember anything from it. I hated it.

Very interesting history, but you forgot to mention one very important fact...

Bjork is from Iceland!! :D

Wow, that is some interesting history there. I wouldn't mind living in such a small country. I guess things would be pretty different. Thaks for sharing that with us Puffin (and The_EgAt)

And bohor, I don't like Bjork... but my brother does. Shes just a bit too weird for me.