Author: Benjamin J. Swenson

News Stories

Sweyn Forkbeard: First Danish King of England and the Alliance that Forged the North Sea Empire, 986-1014AD (Part I)

Sweyn Forkbeard (963-1014) – the ambitious son of King Harald Bluetooth – made an alliance with the Jomsvikings – a mercenary legion of warriors who lived on the southern shore of the Baltic coast. Legend has it the Jomsvikings – often called the Jomsborg Vikings – lived by a strict martial code that forbade capture in battle.

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“Beyond the Volok”: The Medieval Frontier and Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471 (Part Two)

Established as a republic in 1136, much of the history of Novgorod was written in the Old Russian Chronicle of Novgorod.

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“Beyond the Volok”: The Medieval Frontier and Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471 (Part One)

In the centuries prior to Tsarist Russia’s rise to power the two principal centers connecting the Viking and Byzantine worlds were Novgorod and Kiev. Generally referred to as the Kievan Rus’ – the ascendancy of Novgorod within this loosely connected riverine federation stretching between the Dnieper River and Lake Ladoga’s tributaries to the Baltic Sea began during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise (c. 978-1054) – who became Grand Prince of Kiev in 1019 after ruling Novgorod and forming alliances with Scandinavian Vikings (Varangians).

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The Obits of William Walker, Filibustering President of Nicaragua

Born in 1824, Walker, who graduated summa cum laud at the age of fourteen from the University of Nashville, tried his hand at respectable professions such as medicine and law, but ended up as the embodiment of a mercenary movement to extend the realm of American empire south of the Mexican border.

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President Jackson Confronts France: The Spoliations Showdown, 1834-1836

For years the issue of unpaid indemnity – otherwise known as spoliations – caused consternation among successive U.S. diplomats in Paris as the French government refused to address it.

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