Mark Meek's Ideas: Iceland

The island of Iceland was settled by Vikings in the Ninth Century. There are no aboriginal people in Iceland but many people believe that Irish monks were there before the Vikings. The capital and largest city of Reykjavik was founded in 1785. Iceland became independent of Denmark, which had ruled it since 1380. It was a monarchy, ruled in a personal union with Denmark, from 1918-44. A personal union means that two countries are ruled by the same king, although that does not mean that the two are completely united.

An overlooked fact about Iceland is that it's parliament, the Althing, is nearly 1100 years old and is likely the oldest parliament in the world. Iceland is today one of the most prosperous countries. It is not always as frigid as the name implies and it is sometimes said that Iceland and Greenland should switch names.

In cultural terms, Iceland is considered as part of Scandinavia and has a Nordic Cross flag like the others. The cross represents Christianity. The Danish flag is the oldest unchanged flag in the world and was where the Nordic Cross originated on the flags. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Nordic Countries".

The flags are, from top to bottom, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and, Sweden.

England's medieval history originally focused on connections abroad with Scandinavia. Winchester was the capital of the North Sea Empire. But this was changed with the Norman Invasion from Normandy, in 1066, although the Normans had originally been Vikings.

During the Cold War, Iceland sometimes served as a neutral ground where the two sides could meet. Iceland hosted the 1972 chess tournament between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. In 1986, it was where Ronald Reagan met with Mikhail Gorbachev.

Laugavegeur is a main street in central Reykjavik. The very tall church is the Hallgrimkirkja but, like the rest of Scandinavia, you can see that Iceland is not very fond of skyscrapers. The first nine images of the area are from Google Earth and Street View.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Laugavegur,+Reykjav%C3%ADk,+Iceland/@64.1430271,-21.9117195,3a,75y,174.06h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sJJ918UB5EfdFhk9WYCUv_Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0%26panoid%3DJJ918UB5EfdFhk9WYCUv_Q%26yaw%3D174.06160688190462!7i16384!8i8192!4m6!3m5!1s0x48d674cc4a0700eb:0xe8b90d6560c87172!8m2!3d64.1430192!4d-21.9124146!16zL20vMDNwX3pk?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTExMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Here is more of central Reykjavik, beginning at the Hallgrimkirkja. The first four images of the church are from Google Earth and Street View.

Iceland is at high latitude and you can see how long the shadow of the church is. I can't find anything about it but I wonder if these blocks, upon which the shadow falls, act as a sundial.