Battle of Maldon: The English, led by Byrhtnoth, Ealdorman of Essex, are defeated by a band of inland-raiding Vikings near Maldon, Essex.

The Battle of Maldon took place on 10 or 11 August 991 AD near Maldon beside the River Blackwater in Essex, England, during the reign of Æthelred the Unready. Earl Byrhtnoth and his thegns led the English against a Viking invasion. The battle ended in an Anglo-Saxon defeat. After the battle Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury and the aldermen of the south-western provinces advised King Æthelred to buy off the Vikings rather than continue the armed struggle. The result was a payment of Danegeld of 10,000 Roman pounds (3,300 kg) of silver.

Byrhtnoth, Ealdorman of Essex, died at the Battle of Maldon. His name is composed of the Old English beorht (bright) and nōþ (courage). He is the subject of The Battle of Maldon, an Old English poem; J.R.R. Tolkien's short play in verse, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son; and a modern statue at Maldon.

Ealdorman was an office in the government of Anglo-Saxon England. During the 11th century, it evolved into the title of earl.

Essex is a ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the south, Greater London to the south-west, and Hertfordshire to the west. The largest settlement is Southend-on-Sea, and the county town is Chelmsford.

Vikings were a seafaring people originally from Scandinavia, who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe. They voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, Greenland, and Vinland. In their countries of origin, and in some of the countries they raided and settled, this period of activity is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a whole during the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries. The Vikings had a profound impact on the early medieval history of northern and Eastern Europe, including the political and social development of England and parts of France, and established the embryo of Russia in Kievan Rus'.