Editing East Anglia (section)

==History==
{{Further|Kingdom of East Anglia}}
The kingdom of East Anglia initially consisted of [[Norfolk]] and [[Suffolk]], but the [[Isle of Ely]] also became part of it upon the marriage of East Anglian princess [[Æthelthryth]] (Etheldreda). It was formed around 520 by merging the North and South Folk, Angles who had settled in the former lands of the [[Iceni]] during the previous century, and it was one of the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy kingdoms as defined in the 12th-century writings of [[Henry of Huntingdon]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Henry of Huntingdon|author-link=Henry of Huntingdon|translator-last=Greenway|translator-first=Diana|translator-link=Diana Greenway|title=Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People|date=1996|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford|isbn=9780198222248|edition=Reprinted|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O6U5BTD0-rYC&q=heptarchy+historiography&pg=PR61|access-date=7 March 2017}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2017}} East Anglia has been cited by a number of scholars as being a region where settlement of continental Germanic speakers was particularly early and dense,<ref>Catherine Hills, ''The Anglo-Saxon Migration to Britain: An Archaeological Perspective'' (2016)</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Coates|first=Richard|title=Celtic whispers: revisiting the problems of the relation between Brittonic and Old English|url=https://ul.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A31804/attachment/ATT-0/}}</ref><ref>Toby F. Martin, ''The Cruciform Brooch and Anglo-Saxon England'', Boydell and Brewer Press (2015), pp. 174–178</ref> possibly following a depopulation in the 4th century.<ref>{{cite web|last=Dark|first=Ken R.|title=Large-scale population movements into and from Britain south of Hadrian's Wall in the fourth to sixth centuries AD|year=2003|url=https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/GCMS/RMS-2003-03_K._R._Dark,_Large-scale_population_movements_into_and_from_Britan_south_of_Hadrian's_Wall_in_the_fourth_to_sixth_centuries_AD.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200605174112/https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/GCMS/RMS-2003-03_K._R._Dark,_Large-scale_population_movements_into_and_from_Britan_south_of_Hadrian's_Wall_in_the_fourth_to_sixth_centuries_AD.pdf |archive-date=2020-06-05 |url-status=live}}</ref>

A 2016 study found that modern East Anglians share a strong genetic affinity with Anglo-Saxon era skeletons, but differ substantially from Iron Age and Roman era ones, which are more similar to the Welsh. This was taken to support a major influence of the Anglo-Saxon migrations on the genetic makeup of East Anglia.<ref>Martiniano, R., Caffell, A., Holst, M. et al. "Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons." Nat Commun 7, 10326 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10326</ref> In a 2022 study by Joscha Gretzinger et al., the populations of Norfolk and Suffolk were found to be the group with the lowest amount of Iron Age/Roman period [[Insular Celts|British Isles-related]] ancestry, with only about 11–12.7% of their ancestry being derived from that group, while having one of the highest amounts of [[North Sea Germanic|Continental North European]] (45.9–46.1%), and the highest amount of Continental West European (41.2–43.1%) ancestry in all of England.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Gretzinger, J., Sayer, D., Justeau, P. |display-authors=etal|title=The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool |journal=Nature |year=2022 |volume=610 |issue=7930 |pages=112–119 |url=https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05247-2 |publisher=Nature 610, 112–119 (2022) |access-date=4 February 2023 |location=Supplementary Table S5.20|doi=10.1038/s41586-022-05247-2 |pmid=36131019 |pmc=9534755 |bibcode=2022Natur.610..112G}}</ref>

East Anglia was the most powerful of the kingdoms of [[Anglo-Saxon England]] for a brief period following a victory over the rival kingdom of [[Northumbria]] around 616, and its King [[Rædwald of East Anglia|Rædwald]] was [[Bretwalda]] (overlord of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms). However, this did not last; the [[Mercia]]ns defeated it twice over the next 40 years, and East Anglia continued to weaken in relation to the other kingdoms. [[Offa of Mercia]] finally had king [[Æthelberht II of East Anglia|Æthelberht]] killed in 794 and took control of the kingdom himself.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Brown|first1=Michelle P.|last2=Farr|first2=Carol A.|title=Mercia: an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe|date=2005 |publisher=Continuum|location=New York|isbn=9780826477651|page=228}}</ref> Independence was temporarily restored by rebellion in 825, but the Danes killed [[Edmund of East Anglia|King Edmund]] on 20 November 869 and captured the kingdom. [[Edward the Elder]] incorporated East Anglia into the Kingdom of England, and it later became an [[Earl of East Anglia|earldom]].

Parts of East Anglia remained marshland until the 17th-century drainage of the Fens, despite some earlier engineering work during the Roman occupation. The [[alluvial]] land was converted into wide swaths of productive [[arable land]] by a series of systematic drainage projects, mainly using drains and river diversions along the lines of Dutch practice.{{Citation needed|date=March 2017}} In the 1630s, thousands of [[Puritan]] families from East Anglia [[Puritan migration to New England (1620–40)|emigrated to New England]] in America, taking much East Anglian culture with them that can still be traced today.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fischer|first1=David Hackett|author-link=David Hackett Fischer|title=Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America|date=1991|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-506905-1|edition=Reissue|title-link=Albion's Seed|pp=31-33}}</ref> East Anglia based much of its earnings on wool, textiles, and arable farming and was a rich area of England until the [[Industrial Revolution]] caused a manufacturing and development shift to [[English Midlands|the Midlands]] and the North.

During the [[Second World War]], the [[Royal Air Force]] and the [[United States Army Air Force]] constructed many airbases in East Anglia for the heavy bomber fleets of the [[Combined Bomber Offensive]] against [[German-occupied Europe]]. East Anglia was ideally suited to airfield construction, as it includes large areas of open, level terrain and is close to mainland Europe. Many of the airfields can still be seen today, particularly from aerial photographs, and a few remain in use, the most prominent being [[Norwich International Airport]]. [[Pillbox (military)|Pillboxes]] were erected in 1940 to help defend the nation against invasion, and they can also be found throughout the area at strategic points.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pillboxesuk.co.uk/ |title=UK Pillbox, Pillboxes, Bunkers, Anti-tank traps and other Anti-Invasion Defences built in World War 2 |publisher=Pillboxesuk.co.uk |access-date=19 April 2016}}</ref> Similarly, but from the [[Napoleonic Wars]], a number of [[Martello tower]]s can be found along the coast.