Vikings: The North Atlantic
Saga
A Smithsonian - Millennium Council Partnership Exhibit
Expand Your Horizons
Countries around the world, from Iceland to South Africa, have established millennium
commissions of their own and are busy planning programs and activities. Communities
across the U.S. are expanding their millennial celebrations to coordinate with
communities worldwide.
Why not mark the millennium within your community by reaching beyond local
boundaries? Consider using an existing tie with a community overseas to generate
ideas for celebration, or forge a sister city relationship through Sister
Cities' International. For example, the Chicago Sister Cities' International
Program will match at least one Chicago Public School with a school in each
of Chicago's Sister Cities' around the world. Students, teachers and administrators
are communicating across borders via the Internet, video, letters and exchanges.
Each Sister Cities' committee will have a humanitarian project, such as a project
between Chicago and Casablanca, Morocco, which have set up a relief fund to
revitalize the Children's Hospital in Casablanca.
Additional examples of communities connecting
around the world  Sister
Cities' has planned a US National Commission
on Libraries and Information Science. This project pairs libraries with
libraries in other parts of the United States or throughout the world to encourage
an exchange of professional and cultural information. The primary focus of information
exchanged through this program is on children. Sister Cities has also developed
a Pause for Peace Initiative, which included the message of peace in all global
millennium activities. This includes projects such as "What works in a Peaceful
Community: Stories of Courage, Compassion and Civility." The
town of Woodbury, New Jersey has a millennium project that will link the city
to its English roots. In the spring of 2000, a 112-foot replica of a 1725 brig,
the Phoenix, will retrace the historic journey of Henry Wood, a Quaker from
Bury who is credited with founding Woodbury. On July 1, 2000, the new ship's
crew made up partly of young people from Bury and Woodbury, arrived in Woodbury
Creek for a week long millennium celebration. Kentucky
has embarked on an international cultural program with France called the Millennium
Monument Project. A major feature of this project is the 66,000 pound World
Peace Bell, which is decorated with designs highlighting the contributions of
mankind over the last 1,000 years. Culminating the project will be a community
to community viewing of the bell as it makes its way across the Atlantic from
France and up the Mississippi River to the Millennium Monument site in Kentucky.
On New Year's Eve 1999, the bell rang once every hour as each time zone heralded
the year 2000.
International Millennium Events
Viking Exhibit. The year 2000
marks the 1000-year anniversary of the Vikings' arrival in North America. According
to historic documents and now confirmed by archeological finds, Vikings such
as Leif Eriksson sailed west across the North Atlantic from their homelands
in Northern Europe, eventually reaching the Northeast coast of North America
in 1000 AD.
It was at that moment when Europeans and Native Americans first met. The
Leifur Eiriksson Millennium Commission and the White House Millennium Council
are commemorating the discovery of North America with the construction and sailing
of a Viking ship along the route sailed one thousand years ago by Leif Eiriksson;
the ship arrived in Newfoundland on July 28, 2000.
The Viking ship, Islendingur,
will dock for public viewing in the following ports:
Portsmouth, New Hampshire -
September 5-7
Boston, Massachusetts - September
7-15
New Haven, Connecticut - September
27 - October 1
Mystic, Connecticut - October
2
New York, New York - October 5-23
The Millennium Council, in partnership with the Nordic
Council of Ministers and The National Museum
of Natural History in Washington, D.C. will commemorate this historic event
with a major traveling exhibition and educational initiative called Vikings:
The North Atlantic Saga. This interactive exhibit emphasizes the historical
link between Europe and North America while exploring how we have come to know
our past and the relevance the past has for the future. This exhibit opened
at the National Museum of Natural History on April 29, 2000, and will make a
2-year tour of the continent, including New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago
and Ottawa. This exhibit includes an interactive web-site, educational materials,
artifacts from the Viking voyage sites and a cultural, sociological, and geographical
history of the North Atlantic.
On June 21, 2000, in partnership
with the Millennium Council, the United States Mint and the Central Bank of
Iceland issued two commemorative coins - the first ever domestic and international
commemorative coin program celebrating Leif Eiriksson's historic voyage. Click
here for more information on the coins.
A joint effort between The National
Library of Iceland, Cornell University and
The Library of Congress produced a two-day Symposium, May 24-25, 2000 at The
Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The exhibit
included examples of Icelandic manuscripts, printed books from the 16th century
onward, visual electronic media, and films to illustrate Icelandic medieval
civilization. This is only a few of the more than 230 events at 70 venues across
the United States and Canada during the year 2000 that will focus on Iceland.
For more information, visit www.icelandnaturally.com.
Assemblies are being planned
for young people to join in mapping their own paths for the next century such
as: the Incredible Gathering of Youth (Michigan), an International
Youth Parliament (Israel), the Millennium
International Children's Congress (Hawaii), the Millennium Young People's
Congress (England), the UN Youth Assembly
(New York), the World Summit of Children and the Young General Assembly (San
Francisco and New York).
Recent International Millennium Events
An international exposition in
which the United States recently had a presence, The United States Day in the
Dome, was held in The Millennium Dome outside London in Greenwich, United Kingdom.
Greenwich is the home of the Royal Observatory and the starting point for the
measurement of international time zones. The four US Cities that participated
and provided music for the program that took place July 1-2, 2000 in The Millennium
Dome, included:
Memphis, TN, with The Daddy Mack
Blues Band,
Nashville, TN, with traditional
country musicians Mark Collie and Clare Burson,
Indianapolis, IN, with The Jesse
Green Jazz Trio, and
Chicago, IL, with the gospel choir,
Chicago Praise
Through our Millennium
Green interagency partnership of the United States Departments
of Agriculture, Education, Energy,
Interior, Justice,
Transportation, Housing
and Urban Development and the Environmental
Protection Agency, the White House Millennium Council presented a Millennium
Grove to the people of France in April of this year. The trees presented were
to replace some of the 300 million-plus trees destroyed in the ice storms of
late 1999. Those damaged trees had originally been given by President George
Washington, for the grounds of Versailles, in appreciation to the French for
their support in our country's quest for independence. This effort was the first
of an International Millennium Green program which was followed by the planting
of a Dwight D. Eisenhower White Ash to the French Embassy in Washington, D.C.
as a millennium gift to commemorate D-Day. The planting ceremony honored those
men and women of the US and French legions who gave their lives on French soil
during WWII. Click
here for more on this historic tree planting event.
Millennium Around the World: The
Millennium Around the World program was an international effort within the overall
America's Millennium celebration, for the diplomatic community and their families
to commemorate the dawning of the new century. Some of the day's festivities
included exhibits of the International Child Art Foundation, and the World Bank,
as well as excellent performances from talented international children and murals
painted by children. In addition, the President, Mrs. Clinton and Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright, addressed the international community and their
families during the event.
To see a complete listing of upcoming events around the world, please visit
www.millenniumworld.org.
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