Short answers, pulled from the story.
The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, with teaching beginning as early as the 11th century. It averages nine applications for every available place, draws 40% of its academic staff from overseas, and was ranked first in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings in September 2016.
The name Oxford comes from the Old English Oxenaforda, meaning ford of the oxen, referring to a shallow river crossing where oxen could pass. The settlement grew around this strategically important crossing at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Cherwell.
The Oxford Martyrs were bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, burned at the stake in Oxford in October 1555, and former Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, executed in March 1556 during the Marian persecution. The Martyrs' Memorial in St Giles' commemorates these events.
In 1910, entrepreneur William Morris founded a motor car business in Oxford and opened an assembly plant in the suburb of Cowley. The plant later produced cars under the Austin and Rover brands, and BMW acquired it in 2000, making it the principal production site for the Mini.
Oxford-connected writers include Lewis Carroll, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, Oscar Wilde, and Dorothy L. Sayers, among many others. Radiohead, widely regarded as the most notable musical act from the area, formed when members met at Abingdon School near Oxford.
The Ashmolean Museum is the world's first university museum and the oldest museum in the United Kingdom. Its first building was erected between 1678 and 1683 to house a cabinet of curiosities given to the University of Oxford in 1677. The collection includes works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Turner, and Picasso, as well as a pristine Stradivarius violin known as "The Messiah."