Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the context of Kingdom of the East Angles

English is a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain. Their language originated as a group of Ingvaeonic languages which were spoken by the settlers in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages, displacing the Celtic languages, and, possibly, British Latin, that had previously been dominant. Old English reflected the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain. The Late West Saxon dialect eventually became dominant. A significant subsequent influence upon the shaping of Old English came from contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavian Vikings who conquered and colonized parts of Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries, which led to much lexical borrowing and grammatical simplification. The Anglian dialects had a greater influence on Middle English.

After the Norman Conquest in 1066, Old English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman, also known as Anglo-Norman French, as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English or Anglo-Saxon era, as during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. The conquering Normans spoke a Romance langue d'oïl called Old Norman, which in Britain developed into Anglo-Norman. Many Norman and French loanwords entered the local language in this period, especially in vocabulary related to the church, the court system and the government. As Normans are descendants of Vikings who invaded France, Norman French was influenced by Old Norse, and many Norse loanwords in English came directly from French. Middle English was spoken to the late 15th century. The system of orthography that was established during the Middle English period is largely still in use today. Later changes in pronunciation, combined with the adoption of various foreign spellings, mean that the spelling of modern English words appears highly irregular.

Government in Anglo-Saxon England covers English government during the Anglo-Saxon period from the 5th century until the Norman Conquest in 1066. See Government in medieval England for developments after 1066.

Until the 9th century, England was divided into multiple Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Each kingdom had its own laws and customs, but all shared a common basis in the Germanic legal tradition. In the 9th century, the Kingdom of Wessex absorbed the other kingdoms, creating the unified Kingdom of England.

The 1000s was a decade of the Julian Calendar which began on January 1, 1000, and ended on December 31, 1009.

• Palace Scandal: Princess Consort Yasuko has an affair. Michinaga (her half-brother) investigates it secretly and finds out the truth about her pregnancy. Yasuko cries and repents. Yasuko leaves the palace under the patronage of Empress Dowager Senshi and Michinaga (moved to his residence).
• Murasaki Shikibu starts to write The Tale of Genji.
• Ichimonjiya Wasuke, the oldest surviving wagashi store, is established as a teahouse adjacent to Imamiya Shrine.
• January 10: Death of Empress Dowager Masako (empress consort of the late Emperor Reizei)
• April 8: Fujiwara no Shoshi is promoted to Empress (Chugu), while there is another empress, Fujiwara no Teishi (kogo) - this is the first time that there are two empresses

• The Taíno have become the dominant culture of modern day Puerto Rico.

The Muslim world was in its Golden Age; still organised in caliphates, it continued to be dominated by the Abbasid Caliphate, with the Caliphate of Córdoba to the west, the Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa, and experienced ongoing campaigns in Africa and in India. At the time, Persia was in a period of instability, with various polities seceding from Abbasid rule, among whom the Ghaznavids would emerge as the most powerful.

Æthelberht (/ˈæθəlbərt/; also Æthelbert, Aethelberht, Aethelbert or Ethelbert; Old English: Æðelberht [ˈæðelberˠxt]; c. 550 – 24 February 616) was King of Kent from about 589 until his death. The eighth-century monk Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, lists him as the third king to hold imperium over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In the late ninth century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he is referred to as a bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler". He was the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity.

Æthelberht was the son of Eormenric, succeeding him as king, according to the Chronicle. He married Bertha, the Christian daughter of Charibert I, king of the Franks, thus building an alliance with the most powerful state in contemporary Western Europe; the marriage probably took place before he came to the throne. Bertha's influence may have led to Pope Gregory I's decision to send Augustine as a missionary from Rome. Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet in east Kent in 597. Shortly thereafter, Æthelberht converted to Christianity, churches were established, and wider-scale conversion to Christianity began in the kingdom. He provided the new church with land in Canterbury, thus helping to establish one of the foundation stones of English Christianity.