ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

North Sea Empire

The North Sea Empire was a big group of places a long, long time ago. It was a bunch of lands in Europe that were ruled by one person. These lands included Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden, as well as an island called Iceland and a place called England.

Imagine if you had a bunch of toys scattered around your room, but then you put them all together in one big pile and named it after yourself. That's kind of what happened with the North Sea Empire. The person who ruled over it was named Cnut the Great, and he was a really powerful dude.

Cnut became king of Denmark in 1016, and then he also became king of England in 1017. After that, he decided he wanted to rule over even more places. So he started to conquer other lands, including Norway and parts of Sweden.

It was kind of like playing a big game of Risk, where you try to conquer as many territories as possible. Cnut was successful in his conquests, and he ruled over all these places for a while.

However, the North Sea Empire wasn't meant to last forever. After Cnut died in 1035, his sons couldn't keep the empire together. They started to fight amongst themselves, and eventually the empire fell apart. So while it was a cool idea to have all these lands together, it didn't work out in the end.