Early in 1066 the childless English king Edward died, and three claimants emerged for the throne: the Anglo-Saxon noble Harold Godwinson, the Norwegian king Hardrada, and Duke William of Normandy. Harold first crushed the Norwegian army in the north; but days later he received news that William had crossed the Channel and landed in the south. He marched his exhausted army southward.

On 14 October 1066 the two armies met near Hastings. Harold's infantry, relying on a shield wall, held out all day; but the Norman cavalry and archers broke the defensive line with feigned retreats. Harold was killed in the battle — by tradition, with an arrow to the eye. William was crowned at Westminster on Christmas Day and became known as 'the Conqueror.'

The consequences of the conquest were profound. William dispossessed the old Anglo-Saxon nobility and installed a Norman and French aristocracy in their place. The Domesday Book was compiled to record land and taxation across the kingdom — one of the most detailed administrative surveys of medieval Europe. The language of government, law and court was French for centuries.

The most lasting effect was on language: thousands of French and Latin words were grafted onto the Anglo-Saxon (Old English) base. The hybrid vocabulary of modern English — such as the distinction between 'cow' (the Anglo-Saxon animal) and 'beef' (the Norman meat) — is largely the legacy of 1066.