Iceland in the Cold War Iceland, as the United Kingdom conceded to a Icelandic exclusive fishery zone following threats that Iceland would leave NATO. As a result, British fishing communities lost access to rich areas and were devastated, with thousands of jobs lost. The term "cod war" was coined by a British journalist in early September 1958. None of the Cod Wars meets any of the common thresholds for a conventional war, though, and they may more accurately be described as militarized interstate disputes. There is only one confirmed death during the Cod Wars: an Icelandic engineer killed in the Second Cod War. Iceland hosted
Cod fisheries that can be taken not only with nets but with fishing-baskets," and around 1600 English fishing captains still reported cod shoals "so thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them." In the early sixteenth century, fishermen from England, France, Spain and Portugal discovered the best places to fish for cod in the waters off Newfoundland, and how best to preserve the fish for the journey home. The French, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen tended to fish on the Grand Banks and other banks out to sea, where fish were always available. They salted