Did you know England is almost exactly 1,000 years old? Not only that, but can you believe English people have been around for even longer? It's true: even before England had been invented, English people lived in several smaller countries all over the island of Britain. The Saxon King Alfred the Great is famous for trying to bring these countries together ? even though this caused many clashes with their greatest enemies, the Vikings. Eventually, Alfred's children did unite the English countries. But it was a Viking called Cnut the Great who decided to stick all these countries together and make a new one called England, where people from all over the world could live side-by-side.