On March 29, 845, a 5,000-strong army of Danish Vikings invaded Frankish lands and only retreated after besieging Paris and securing a ransom from the Frankish King Charles the Bald. This was part of a series of devastating raids begun by the Vikings that began in the 790s. The Vikings were led by a man named “Reginherus” or Ragnar, sometimes linked to the legendary saga figure Ragnar Lodbrok. The Vikings easily overcame defences set in place by Charlemagne [1] and are known to have attacked the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés just outside the city. The Vikings returned home with a ransom of 7,000 French livres of gold and silver.
—
March 29, 1638: The first permanent white settlement in Delaware, Fort Christina (now Wilmington), was founded by Swedish Lutherans.
—
And on March 29, 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined NATO as full members.
—
Today feature piece is by JWR.
—
We silll need entries for Round 123 and Round 124 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest [2]. More than $981,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 123 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail [3] us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics [4]. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.