William, Duke of Normandy (about 1028–1087), claimed the English throne after the death of Edward the Confessor in 1066. His decisive victory at the Battle of Hastings in October that year — and the death of his rival Harold Godwinson — made him King William I of England, crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066.
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William reorganised England along Norman lines: he gave land to French-speaking nobles in return for military service (feudalism), built stone castles such as the Tower of London, and commissioned the Domesday Book in 1086 — a remarkable survey of land and resources used to assess taxation. He died in 1087 after a fall from his horse at Mantes in France.
You may be asked who won the Battle of Hastings (William the Conqueror), or what the Domesday Book recorded (land and tax in England in 1086).
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