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Orkney

archipelago, county and council area in northern Scotland

27 dated entries naming Orkney, drawn from 25 separate years between 565 CE and 1969 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as Orkney Islands in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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6th century

  • 565Columba begins preaching in the Orkney Islands (approximate date).source

7th century

  • 682Bridei III, King of the Picts, campaigns violently against Orkney.source

9th century

  • 875King Harald Fairhair of Norway subdues the rovers on the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands, and adds them to his kingdom (approximate date).source

11th century

  • 1080Magnus Erlendsson, Norse earl of Orkney (died 1115)source
  • 1098June or July – Battle of Anglesey Sound: A Norwegian fleet led by King Magnus Barefoot reverses an Anglo-Norman invasion of North Wales. Magnus conquers the Orkney Islands, the Hebrides and the Isle of Man.source

12th century

  • 1117April 16 – Magnus Erlendsson, Norse earl of Orkney (born 1080)source
  • 1150Cubbie Roo's Castle is built on Wyre (Orkney Islands) and is first mentioned in the Orkneyinga Saga.source
  • 1158August 20 – Rögnvald Kali Kolsson, Earl of Orkneysource

13th century

  • 1263October 2 – Battle of Largs: Scottish forces under Alexander Stewart rout a Viking invasion force led by Haakon IV at Largs in North Ayrshire. The battle is inconclusive. On the morning of October 3, the Norwegians return to collect their dead and burn their beached ships. By the end of October, the Viking fleet reaches Orkney, where Haakon becomes ill and dies at the Bishop's Palace, on December 16.source
  • 1266July 2 – Treaty of Perth: King Alexander III of Scotland agrees to a peace settlement with King Magnus VI of Norway ("the Law-mender") in which the Outer Hebrides and Isle of Man are ceded to Scotland in exchange for 4,000 marks. In return, Alexander confirms Norwegian sovereignty over the islands of Shetland and Orkney.source
  • 1290September – The 7-year-old Margaret, Maid of Norway, queen-designate and heir to the crown of Scotland, dies en route to the British Isles in Orkney, leading to thirteen competitors for the crown of Scotland, a succession crisis.source

14th century

  • 1396July 20 – Queen Margaret I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden publishes the Treaty of Kalmar, proposing the personal union of the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway (with Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Shetland and Orkney) and Sweden (including Finland and Åland).source
  • 1397June 17 – Erik of Pomerania is crowned in Kalmar (Sweden) as ruler of the Kalmar Union, a personal union of the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway (with Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Shetland and Orkney) and Sweden (including Finland and Åland) engineered by Queen Margaret I of Denmark, his great-aunt and adoptive mother, who retains de facto power in the realm.source

15th century

  • 1468September 8 – The Orkney Islands are pledged to Scotland by King Christian I of Kingdom of Norway in consideration of an agreement for the marriage of 16-year-old King James III of Scotland to Princess Margrete, King Christian's daughter, with the islands pledged as security against the payment of the dowry. As the money is never paid, the connection with the crown of Scotland becomes perpetual.source
  • 1471Orkney and Shetland were absorbed into Scotland.source
  • 1472February 20 – Orkney and Shetland are returned by Norway to Scotland, as a result of a defaulted dowry payment.source

17th century

  • 1616Elizabeth Rutter is hanged as a witch in Middlesex, England, Agnes Berrye in Enfield, and nine women in Leicester on the testimony of a raving 13-year-old named John Smith, under the Witchcraft Act 1603. In Orkney, Elspeth Reoch is tried. In France Leger (first name unknown) is condemned for witchcraft on May 6, Sylvanie de la Plaine is burned at Pays de Labourde as a witch, and in Orléans eighteen witches are killed.source
  • 1650April 27 – The Battle of Carbisdale begins when a Royalist army invades mainland Scotland from the Orkney Islands. The Royalists are defeated by a Covenanter army.source
  • 1679December 10 – More than 200 captives on the ship The Crown of London, all Scottish Covenanters arrested after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, are killed when the ship is wrecked on the Orkney Islands while transporting the group to exile in North America.source

19th century

  • 1861June – first modern excavation of the Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave of Maeshowe on Orkney.source

20th century

  • 1916June 5 – WWI: HMS Hampshire sinks, having hit a mine off the Orkney Islands, Scotland, with Lord Kitchener aboard.source
  • 19165 June – HMS Hampshire sinks off Orkney, probably having struck a German mine, with the loss of 650 lives – including Lord Kitchener and his staff – and only 13 survivors.source
  • 19165 June – HMS Hampshire sinks having hit a mine off Orkney with Lord Kitchener aboard. 737 lives, including Kitchener, were lost.source
  • 1917August 2 – Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning lands his aircraft on the ship HMS Furious in Scapa Flow, Orkney. He is killed 5 days later during another landing on the ship.source
  • 1938The Neolithic settlement of Rinyo on Rousay in Orkney is excavated by V. Gordon Childe.source
  • 1940April 10 – WWII: First naval Battle of Narvik – The British Royal Navy attacks the German fleet in the Ofotfjord. At Bergen, German cruiser Königsberg is sunk by British Fleet Air Arm Blackburn Skua dive bombers, flying from RNAS Hatston in Orkney.source
  • 1969March 17 – The Longhope life-boat is lost after answering a mayday call during severe storms in the Pentland Firth between Orkney and the northern tip of Scotland; the entire crew of 8 die.source

Named in the same entries