The inscription reads: Leifr Eiricsson, Son of Iceland, Discoverer of Vinland, The United States of America to the People of Iceland on the one thousandth anniversary of the Althing, AD 1930. Leifr Eiricsson (Icelandic spelling) was the son of Erik the Red (namer of Greenland) and is thought to have been born in the Breidafjordur area of Iceland in about 970 or 980 AD. According to the Sagas of Icelanders he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, possibly the northern tip of Newfoundland, and this discovered north America 500 years before Columbus.