On this day, King Aethelred of England, commonly known as “the Unready” but whose nickname would be more accurately translated as “the ill-advised“, ordered the deaths of all the Danes in his kingdom. After a brief period of relative peace and stability the Vikings had begun to launch raids again, winning a decisive victory at the Battle of Maldon in 991. Aethelred managed to buy a few years of peace at great cost to the treasury, but it was a short-term solution. The full scale of the massacre he ordered is not known, but the victims included Gunhilde, the sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, the formidable King of Denmark, who waged a vindictive ten-year war on England. Eventually, in 1013, Forkbeard defeated Aethelred, marched into London, and claimed the land to be his own. Sweyn’s son Cnut finished the job in 1016 and Aethelred’s kingdom became an extension of Denmark’s growing Empire.
