Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian-born merchant and explorer who took part in early voyages to the New World on behalf of Spain around the late 15th century.

On May 10, 1497, explorer Amerigo Vespucci embarked on his first voyage. On his third and most successful voyage, he discovered present-day Rio de Janeiro and Rio de la Plata. Believing he had discovered a new continent, he called South America the New World. In 1507, America was named after him.

Lexi Rose (III)

The Blood Eagle is a form of punishment and execution, thought to be used by the Vikings. The graphic ritual execution method sees the victim’s back sliced open, so their ribs and lungs could be pulled out, whilst still alive. Their lungs were then arranged to resemble the wings of an eagle sticking out of their back.

Valkyrie, also spelled Walkyrie, Old Norse Valkyrja (“Chooser of the Slain”), in Norse mythology, any of a group of maidens who served the god Odin and were sent by him to the battlefields to choose the slain who were worthy of a place in Valhalla.

There are three steps to performing the blood-eagle:

1. Cut the shape of an eagle into the back of the victim.
2. Cut the ribs away from the spine.
3. Reach in and pull out the lungs.

There is debate about whether the blood eagle was historically practiced, or whether it was a literary device invented by the authors who transcribed the sagas. No contemporary accounts of the rite exist, and the scant references in the sagas are several hundred years after the Christianization of Scandinavia.