6
Step Historical Events
1
- Select and review descriptions of historical events
TT In this unit you will analyze different models and practice strategies in order to write a report about a historical event. What important historical events took place in your country?
1 Discuss in pairs. VV What do you know about the people in the pictures? VV Where were they from?
the title, look at the picture, and underline the correct 2 Read option to complete the sentence. The article is about the habits / social organization / expansion of the Vikings. RAIDERS AND WARRIORS The Norsemen were from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The word Viking comes from the Norse word “vikingr” and means “pirate”. It applies to those Norsemen who, from the 8th to the 11th century CE, left their homelands in their longships with the purpose of raiding towns and cities. The Viking raids started at Lindisfarne, a small island off the coast of northeast England in 793. They had an important cultural influence in Scotland, Britain, France, and Ireland. They founded Dublin, colonized Normandy in France, and established the area of the Danelaw in Britain. They pillaged churches and monasteries. These pagan seafarers also left their mark as raiders, traders, and settlers in many other coastal and inland regions in Europe. They reached the Byzantine Empire in the east, as well as parts of modern day Russia.
For several decades the Vikings made hit-andrun raids, but after some years they started to settle in different regions, as Erik the Red did when he moved from Iceland to Greenland, and from there the Vikings sailed west to be the first Europeans to reach North America and set up a community in Newfoundland.
3 Read the article and answer the questions in pairs. 1. Who were the Vikings? 2. How long did their expansion last? 3. How do you think the people from the places they raided described them?
Unit 6 · Historical Events
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