Military history of Iceland called the Icelandic Cod Wars (Icelandic: "Þorskastríðin", "the cod war", or "Landhelgisstríðin", "the war for the territorial waters"), were a series of three confrontations from the 1950s to the 1970s between the United Kingdom and Iceland over fishing rights in the North Atlantic. The First Cod War lasted from 1 September until 12 November 1958. It began as soon as a new Icelandic law that expanded the Icelandic fishery zone from , came into force at midnight of 1 September. After a number of rammings and a few shots fired between the Royal Navy and Icelandic patrol boats, Britain and
Cod fishing in Newfoundland food source contributed to a decrease in the Beothuk population. Beothuk numbers began to dwindle rapidly due to a combination of factors directly relating to European, Inuit and Mi'kmaq migration, and by the 19th Century, the tribe no longer existed. After his voyage in 1497, John Cabot's crew reported that the sea there is full of fish 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,