Erik the Red
Explorer and founder of the first viking settlement in Greenland · Norway · Historical Figures · Lived 950 to 1003 · aged 53
Erik the Red is read about 1,303 times a day, in 64 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?A Norse explorer exiled twice - first from Norway as a child, then from Iceland as an adult - who turned the second banishment into a colonization opportunity, naming a frozen island "Greenland" and selling it to settlers who followed him west.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
Family
Erik the RedPartners
Children
Is this everyone?
Only relatives with a profile here are drawn, so a family can be larger than this. A line here can also be wrong.
Correct this familyAbout this person
Born around 950 in Rogaland, Norway, Erik Thorvaldsson sailed to Iceland as a boy when his father was banished. He married Þjódhild Jorundsdottir there and raised four children, including Leif Erikson. Around 982, Erik himself was exiled from Iceland for three years. He spent that sentence exploring the land to the west, charting fjords and coastline. When the exile lifted, he returned with stories and a plan, calling the new territory Greenland to attract colonists. The first European settlement took root under his lead. He died there around 1003 during a winter epidemic, never seeing Norway again.
Fame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.