After a couple of hundred years of Viking raids, payments of tens of thousands of pounds of silver in protection money, and conquests over the Anglo-Saxons, by the year 1002 it seems King Aethelred II of Wessex in Southern England was nearing the end of his tether. But what apparently really led him to send out his kill-all order were rumors that the Danes were plotting his and his council’s death. In response to this supposed threat, Aethelred ordered his people to kill every Danish man on English soil. It is unclear how many Danish Vikings perished in the massacre, which was carried out on Nov. 13, 1002, St. Brice’s feast day. Archaeologists have recently been studying two mass graves of young men who died by violence and have speculated that they may have been slain in the St. Brice’s Day Massacre. The Life and Death of Sweyn Forkbeard and His Viking Empire Unraveling the Mystery of the Headless Vikings of Dorset Painting of Æthelred the Unready, circa 968-1016. (Public Domain) Read moreSection: NewsHistoryImportant EventsRead Later