Essex is a county in the East of England which originated as the ancient Kingdom of Essex and one of the seven kingdoms, or heptarchy, that went on to form the Kingdom of England.

The name Essex derives from the Kingdom of Essex or Kingdom of the East Seaxe which was traditionally founded by Aescwine in 527 AD, occupying territory to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea.

In 825 AD it became part of the Kingdom of Wessex and was later ceded under the Treaty of Wedmore to the Danelaw control of the Kingdom of East Anglia. In 991 AD the Battle of Maldon resulted in complete defeat for the Anglo-Saxons against the Vikings and led to the poem The Battle of Maldon.

The county was divided into the hundreds of:

The area which Essex now occupies was ruled pre-Roman settlement by the Celtic Trinovantes tribe. A dispute between them and another tribe^{[clarification needed]} was used as an excuse for a Roman invasion in 55 BC, and they allied with Rome when Claudius returned in 49 AD. This led to Camulodunum (Colchester) transferring from the Trinovantes to the Roman Empire as the capital of Roman Britain. The Trinovantes later fought with the Iceni tribe against Roman rule as the Romans did not accept that in the Iceni tradition women could be rulers and therefore after Boudicca became ruler they sought to take power which was not part of the agreement that they had come to

Essex ( /ˈɛsɨks/) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west. Essex County Council is the principal local authority for much of the county, sharing functions with twelve district councils. The county town is Chelmsford. The southern Essex boroughs of Thurrock and Southend-on-Sea are governed separately as unitary authorities. It was established in antiquity and formed the eastern portion of the Kingdom of Essex. Sections of the county closer to London are part of the Metropolitan Green Belt, which prohibits development. It is the location of the regionally significant Lakeside Shopping Centre and London Stansted Airport; and the new towns of Basildon and Harlow.

The name Essex originates in the Anglo-Saxon period of the Early Middle Ages and has its root in the Old English Ēastseaxe (i.e. the "East Saxons"), the eastern kingdom of the Saxons. Originally (in 527 AD) it occupied territory to the north of the River Thames, incorporating all of what later became Middlesex and most of what later became Hertfordshire, though its territory was later restricted to lands east of the River Lea.Colchester in the north east of the county is Britain's oldest recorded town, dating back to before the Roman conquest, when it was known as Camulodunum and was sufficiently well-developed to have its own mint. Subsequently the Kingdom of Essex was subsumed into the Kingdom of England and Essex eventually became a county.

Ronald Antonio "Ronnie" O'Sullivan (born 5 December 1975) is an English professional snooker player known for his rapid playing style, and is nicknamed "The Rocket". He has been World Champion on four occasions (2001, 2004, 2008 and 2012) and, with career earnings of over £6 million is second after Stephen Hendry on snooker's all-time prize-money list. O'Sullivan has been the world's no. 1 player on five occasions, and has won a total of 24 ranking titles. He is second, again behind Hendry, on the list of players making the most competitive century breaks, with a total of 678. O'Sullivan has compiled 11 maximum breaks in professional competition, a record which he shares with Hendry. He also holds the record for the fastest maximum break, at 5 minutes 20 seconds.

O'Sullivan is considered by many fans, critics and professionals, including fellow multiple-World Championship winners Hendry and Steve Davis, as the most naturally talented player in the history of the game. He has, however, been involved in a number of controversial incidents during his career.

John Foxe (1517 – 18 April 1587) was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs (properly The Acts and Monuments), an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the reign of Mary I. Widely owned and read by English Puritans, the book helped mould British popular opinion about the Catholic Church for several centuries.

Foxe was born in Boston, in Lincolnshire, England of a middlingly prominent family and seems to have been an unusually studious and devout child. In about 1534, when he was about sixteen, he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was the pupil of John Hawarden (or Harding), a fellow of the college. In 1535 Foxe was admitted to Magdalen College School, where he may either have been improving his Latin or acting as a junior instructor. He became a probationer fellow in July 1538 and a full fellow the following July.