Template:Wp-Faroe Islands-History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

There is some evidence of settlement on the Faroe Islands before Norse Viking settlers arrived in the ninth century AD. Archeologists found burnt grains of domesticated barley and peat ash deposited in two phases; the first dated between the mid-fourth and mid-sixth centuries, and another between the late-sixth and late-eighth centuries. Researchers have also found sheep DNA in lake-bed sediments, which were dated to around the year 500. Barley and sheep had to have been brought to the islands by humans. As Scandinavians did not begin using the sail until about 750, it is unlikely they could have reached the Faroes before then, and it is more likely the settlers came from Great Britain or Ireland.

Archaeologist Mike Church noted that Dicuil, an Irish monk of the early ninth century, may have mentioned the Faroes. Dicuil wrote in his geographical work De mensura orbis terrae that there were heremitae ex nostra Scotia ("hermits from our land of Ireland/Scotland") who had lived on the northerly islands of Britain for almost a hundred years until the Vikings arrived. Church suggested that the people living there might have been from Ireland, Scotland, or Scandinavia, or possibly from all three. According to a ninth-century voyage tale, the Irish saint Brendan visited islands resembling the Faroes in the sixth century. This association, however, is not conclusive.

Norsemen settled the islands c. 800, bringing Old West Norse, which evolved into the modern Faroese language. According to Icelandic sagas such as Færeyjar Saga, one of the best known men in the island was Tróndur í Gøtu, a descendant of Scandinavian chiefs who had settled in Dublin, Ireland. Tróndur led the battle against Sigmund Brestisson, the Norwegian monarchy and the Norwegian church.

The Norse and Norse–Gael settlers probably did not come directly from Scandinavia, but rather from Norse communities surrounding the Irish Sea, Northern Isles, and Outer Hebrides of Scotland, including the Shetland and Orkney islands. A traditional name for the islands in Irish, Na Scigirí, possibly refers to the (Eyja-)Skeggjar "(Island-)Beards", a nickname given to island dwellers.

According to the Færeyinga saga, more emigrants left Norway who did not approve of the monarchy of Harald Fairhair (ruled c. 872 to 930). These people settled the Faroes around the end of the ninth century. Early in the eleventh century, Sigmundur Brestisson (961–1005) – whose clan had flourished in the southern islands before invaders from the northern islands almost exterminated it – escaped to Norway. He was sent back to take possession of the islands for Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway from 995 to 1000. Sigmundur introduced Christianity, forcing Tróndur í Gøtu to convert or face beheading and, although Sigmundur was subsequently murdered, Norwegian taxation was upheld. Norwegian control of the Faroes continued until 1814, although, when the Kingdom of Norway (872–1397) entered the Kalmar Union with Denmark, this gradually resulted in Danish control of the islands. The Protestant Reformation in the form of Lutheranism reached the Faroes in 1538. When the union between Denmark and Norway was dissolved as a result of the Treaty of Kiel in 1814, Denmark retained possession of the Faroe Islands (along with Greenland and Iceland); Norway itself was joined in a union with Sweden.

Following the turmoil caused by the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), in 1816, the Faroe Islands became a county within the Danish Kingdom.

As part of its mercantilist economic policy, Denmark maintained a monopoly over trade with the Faroe Islands and forbade their inhabitants trading with others (e.g. the geographically close Britain). The trade monopoly in the Faroe Islands was abolished in 1856, after which the area developed as a modern fishing nation with its own fishing fleet. The national awakening from 1888 initially arose from a struggle to maintain the Faroese language and was thus culturally oriented, but after 1906 it became more political with the foundation of political parties within the Faroe Islands.

In the first year of the Second World War, on 12 April 1940, British troops occupied the Faroe Islands in Operation Valentine. Nazi Germany had invaded Denmark and commenced the invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940 under Operation Weserübung. In 1942–1943, the British Royal Engineers, under the command of lieutenant colonel William Law, built the first and only airport in the Faroe Islands, Vágar Airport. Following the war, control of the islands reverted to Denmark, but Danish rule had been undermined, and Iceland's full independence served as a precedent and a model in the mind of many Faroese.

The 1946 Faroese independence referendum resulted in 50.73% in favour of independence to 49.27% against. The Faroe Islands subsequently declared independence on 18 September 1946; however, this declaration was annulled by Denmark on 20 September on the grounds that a majority of the Faroese voters had not supported independence and King Christian X of Denmark dissolved the Faroese Løgting on 24 September. The dissolution of the Løgting took place in November, followed by the Faroese parliamentary election of 1946 in which the parties in favour of full independence received a total of 5,396 votes while the parties opposed to it received a total of 7,488 votes. As a reaction to the growing movements in favour of self-government and independence, Denmark finally granted the Faroe Islands home-rule with a high degree of local autonomy in 1948.

In 1973 the Faroe Islands declined to join Denmark in entering the European Economic Community (which later became the European Union). Following the collapse of the fishing industry in the early 1990s, the Faroes experienced considerable economic difficulties.