Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Norwegian-Norse chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson built his homestead in present-day Reykjavík in 874 and is regarded as Iceland's first permanent settler. Earlier, Náttfari, one of Garðar Svavarsson's men, stayed behind with two slaves and became the first documented permanent resident.
Iceland's name came from Flóki Vilgerðarson, the first Norseman to travel there intentionally. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he named it after climbing a mountain and seeing an ice cap, despondent following a harsh winter in present-day Vatnsfjörður.
Iceland formally became a republic on the 17th of June 1944, with Sveinn Björnsson as its first president. In a four-day plebiscite beginning on the 20th of May 1944-97 percent voted to end the union with Denmark and 95 percent backed a republican constitution.
Iceland has no standing army and maintains only a lightly armed coast guard. It is the only NATO member with no standing army and the alliance's smallest member by population, and the 2024 Global Peace Index ranked it the most peaceful country in the world.
Iceland sits directly on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge above the Iceland hotspot, where the Eurasian and North American plates are pulling apart. It has hundreds of volcanoes and about 30 active volcanic systems, along with geysers such as Geysir and Strokkur, which erupts every 8 to 10 minutes.
Iceland was hit hard by a financial crisis when its three largest banks, Glitnir, Landsbanki, and Kaupthing, collapsed, their combined debt exceeding roughly six times the nation's gross domestic product. The crash caused the greatest migration from Iceland since 1887, with a net emigration of 5,000 people in 2009.