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02/20/10(Sat)15:48 No.8190714historyfag here.
a successful vinlandia colony would, in the greater scheme of things have resulted in major shifts in history.
in the viing era, it would've been fairly limited. norwegian princes would've still tried to take England, the Danes would've raided, Iceland would've been a democracy...
iceland itself would've likely prospered a bit more, as a staging point in the sail from the norse world, to Vinland.
the big changes would've come in the post-viking world. The knowledge of the esistence of the northern americas would have spurred the Haseantic LEague to expand from the Baltic westwards, creating trade lanes with Vinland before Columbus' voyage to the Carribbean in 1492. Clinker-build haseantic Knarr, Cog, and Holks would've sailed west along the northern routes, returning laden with furs and the trade goods that 500 years later would've formed the Hudson Bay Company.
the scraeling indians would've eventually been tamed, allowing steady migration south and inland, through canada into the northern united states in the same time as the first spanish settlers were landing in the americas.
the resultant trade would've shifted trade hubs from the mediterranean, to the baltic, with trade fingers up the danube and into Rus, and over to vinland. the economic prosperity of the shift from mediterranean focus that came with the discovery of america would've happened earlier, meaning tht the high medieval and early renaissance would've ocurred in britian, germany and denmark earlier, rather than italy and france.
distant from the controlling powers of Rome, these new trade hubs would've allowed men like Kepler to do their work unimpeded by the catholic dogma, and science would've driven forward in leaps and bounds. |
