Some paraphrasing on the rings of power -
At the beginning of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy Sauron possessed the 9 rings of men (worn by the Kings and Princes who became the doomed and enslaved Ringwraiths that could never be released from their ghostly lives) and 3 of 7 dwarvish rings (4 of the dwarvish rings had already been consumed by dragons with their owners). The rings were created by Celebrimbor with the aid of Sauron. Sauron deceived the master elven craftsman Celebrimbor by enchanting his evil spells into the rings. His purpose was to have these rings of power distributed among the greatest of men and dwarves while he secretly forged the one ring to rule them all by his own hand. Celebrimbor also created 3 elvish rings which Sauron never touched or saw. These rings were, The ring of Airs (Vilya) mightiest of the three, which bore a great blue stone originally possessed by Gil-galad, who gave the ring to Elrond at the end of the second age; The ring of Waters (Nenya) with a single hard white stone of great beauty, which was always in the keeping of the Lady Galadriel; and the ring of Fire, borne by Cirdan the Shipwright until the end of the first millennium of the Third Age, when he surrendered the Ring with its great red stone to the wizard Gandalf the Grey. Sauron's one ring was taken from him by force from Sauron's own hand at the end of the Second Age by Isildur son of Elendil. The ring fiercely burned Isildur when he first seized it and abandoned him in his moment of need during an ambush at Gladden Fields, plunging into the bottom of a river bed for two thousand years in wait for it's master Sauron to slowly awaken into strength once more. In the 25th century of the Third age, the ring was stirring because of the growth of power emanating from the Dol Guldur (where it was thought that the leader of the Ringwraiths resided and Greenwood forest was renamed Mirkwood; No one knew that it was actually Sauron himself who resided in that fortress). A simple hobbit fisherman named Deagol found the One Ring and was instantly murdered by his hobbit friend Smeagol (later known as Gollum) who took the ring and hid deep beneath the Misty Mountains with it. The Ring, realizing that Gollum was not fullfilling its purpose hidden deep in the mountains after 500 years, ensnared a passing hobbit traveller named Bilbo Baggins who later passed it on to his nephew in 3001 of the Third age. With Sauron grown powerful in the land of Mordor and he being in constant search for this Ring, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy begins.