supplies they thought they would need
to get to Valhalla—tools, weapons, and
even boats. Modern scientists have
learned much about Viking life by opening
Viking graves.
Writings called sagas provide even more
information about Vikings. Sagas are
Viking stories that Icelanders wrote
down in the 1100s and 1200s.
Conquests
Vikings first attacked England in the late
700s. In 865 a Viking group from Denmark
called the Danes conquered several
English kingdoms. The English drove
out the Danes in 954, but the Danes
soon returned. The Danish king Canute
I ruled England from 1016 to 1035 as a
part of his Viking empire. England
finally threw off Danish rule in 1042.
However, in 1066 the Normans conquered
England. The Normans were
descendants of Vikings who had settled
in France. The name Norman means
“Northman.”
Vikings first attacked Ireland in 795.
They started several kingdoms there.
They threatened all of Ireland until
1014, when the Irish beat them in the
battle of Clontarf.
Some Vikings roamed eastward. They
attacked and looted the coasts of the
Baltic Sea. After invading Russia, they
moved far inland and mixed with the
native people. The name of Russia
comes from a Viking word.
After the 1000s the Vikings were no
longer an independent group of warriors.
Some mixed with the peoples of
the lands that they conquered. Others
settled down in their homelands. Eventually
they also became Christians.
#More to explore
Denmark • Leif Eriksson • Norway
• Sweden
Vila
Vila is the capital of Vanuatu, an island
country in the Pacific Ocean. The town
is on Efate Island. Vila is a small town,
A Viking burial ship is on display in a
museum in Oslo, Norway.
In some Viking
funerals, the
body was put
in a boat that
was set on fire
and pushed
out into the
water.
BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA Vila 89
but it is the largest town in Vanuatu. It
is also one of the country’s main ports.
The town is also called Port-Vila.
Tourism, banking, and other service
industries are important to Vila’s
economy. The town is Vanuatu’s center
of trade.
Melanesian peoples have lived on the
islands of Vanuatu for thousands of
years. In the 1880s the French and British
together took control of the islands.
In the 1940s, duringWorldWar II, the
U.S. Navy used Vila’s harbor as a base.
U.S. troops built many roads and buildings
in the town. In 1980 Vanuatu
became an independent country. Vila
was made the capital.
#More to explore
Vanuatu
Villa, Pancho
Pancho Villa was a leader of the Mexican
Revolution in the early 1900s. Some
people called him a dangerous revolutionary.
Many others saw him as a
defender of the poor.
Pancho Villa was born on June 5, 1878,
in San Juan del Rio, in northern
Mexico. His name at first was Doroteo
Arango. As a young man he led a gang
of criminals and changed his name to
Francisco Villa. Pancho was a nickname.
The president of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz,
was hard on the common people. Villa
helped a leader named Francisco Madero
to overthrow Diaz in 1911. This
began the Mexican Revolution. Victoriano
Huerta, who was Madero’s army
chief, did not trust Villa. He put Villa in
prison. But Villa escaped to the United
States. In 1913 Huerta seized control of
Mexico from Madero. Then Villa
returned to Mexico.
Pancho Villa
Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, is on the coast
of Efate Island. A small island called Iririki
sits in Vila’s harbor.
90 Villa, Pancho BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA
Villa put together a group of fighters
called the Division of the North. In
1914 Villa and Venustiano Carranza,
another leader of the revolution,
defeated Huerta. Carranza became the
new leader of Mexico.
Carranza and Villa soon turned against
each other. Carranza forced Villa and
Emiliano Zapata, another rebel leader,
out of Mexico City, the capital. In 1915
the United States gave its support to
Carranza. Villa then murdered U.S.
citizens in both Mexico and the United
States. U.S. soldiers invaded Mexico in
1916, but they did not find Villa.
Carranza was overthrown in 1920. Then
Villa stopped fighting the government.
Someone killed Villa on his ranch near
Parral, Mexico, on June 20, 1923. Police
never solved the murder.
..More to explore
Mexico • Zapata, Emiliano
Vilnius
Population
(2008 estimate)
544,200
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, a
country in northeastern Europe. It is the
largest city in Lithuania.
Service industries such as banking, trade,
and tourism are important to the
economy of Vilnius. The city is also a
major manufacturing area. The leading
industries include clothes making, food
processing, and printing and publishing.
Vilnius dates back to about the 900s. In
the 1500s the city grew as a trading center.
For hundreds of years it was also a
center of Jewish culture and learning.
Many countries—including Russia,
Sweden, and Poland—controlled Vilnius
throughout its history. The Soviet Union
captured Lithuania in 1940.
German troops ruled Vilnius in the early
1940s, duringWorldWar II. The city
suffered heavy damage. The Germans
murdered nearly all the city’s Jews. This
was part of a mass killing called the
Holocaust.
After the war the Soviet Union again
ruled Lithuania. In 1991 Lithuania