Interracial marriage
From AD 839, Viking Varangian mercenaries who were in the service of the Byzantine Empire, notably Harald Sigurdsson, campaigned in North Africa, Jerusalem and other places in the Middle East during the Byzantine-Arab Wars. They interbred with the local population as spoils of warfare or through eventual settling with many Scandinavian Viking men taking Arab or Anatolian women as wives. There is archaeological evidence the Vikings had established contact with the city of Baghdad, at the time the center of the Islamic Empire, and connected with the populace there. Regularly plying the Volga with their trade goods (furs, tusks, seal fat, seal boats and notably female slaves; the one period in the history of the slave-trade when females were priced higher than males), the Vikings were active in the Arab slave trade at the time. These slaves, most often Europeans that were captured from the coasts of Europe or during war periods, and sold to Arabic traders in Al-Andalus and the Emirate of Sicily.
Western Norway
Historically Vikings are often introduced with the Viking attack on Lindisfarne in 793, when they really made their mark in European history. The era ends with the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. Vikings' seaworthiness and wanderlust resulted in new areas being developed. Norwegian settlers moved into the North Sea westward to Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Shetland, Orkney, Isle of Mann and the Hebrides.
Settlements were established in the southeast corner of Ireland including in Dublin, Waterford and Wexford. Norwegians settled along the northwest area of England, principally in the area of modern-day Cumbria. The Norwegian Vikings also discovered Vinland, present-day America, long before Christopher Columbus.