‘The alternative history of Iceland’ podcast: ‘What if Iceland had joined the British Empire?’
In Tasmania, off the coast of Australia, there is a grave marked “King of Iceland.” Even more bizarrely, the title of the person was actually real. Sort of. During the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark and Britain found themselves fighting on opposing sides. An English soap salesman and a Danish POW decided this was an opportune time to conquer the Danish colony of Iceland. This could have led to Iceland being incorporated into the British Empire. Or Sweden. But what actually happened was stranger still.
What if Icelanders had settled in North America during the Viking Age? What if Iceland was wiped out by a volcano and the survivors moved to Denmark? What if Iceland had been occupied by the Nazis instead of the Allies? What if the Nordic Countries had united? And what if the economic collapse had been averted? Listen to historians Valur Gunnarsson and Jón Trausti Sigurðarson talk about Icelandic history as it happened and what could have been. Produced by Sindri Freyr Steinsson.
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