On this day in 1564, according to tradition, the great English dramatist and poet, William Shakespeare, was born in Stratford-on-Avon.
It is impossible to be certain of the exact date on which he was born, but church records show that he was baptised on 26 April, and three days was a customary amount of time to wait before baptising a newborn. Shakespeare’s date of death is conclusively known, however.
Although few plays have been performed or analysed as extensively as the 38 plays ascribed to William Shakespeare, there are few surviving details about the playwright’s life. This lack of biographical information is due primarily to his station in life; he was not a noble, but the son of John Shakespeare, a leather trader and the town bailiff. The events of William Shakespeare’s early life can only be gleaned from official records, such as baptism and marriage records.
He probably attended the grammar school in Stratford, where he would have studied Latin and read classical literature. He did not go to university, but at the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior and pregnant at the time of the marriage. Their first daughter, Susanna, was born six months later, and in 1585 William and Anne had twins, Hamnet and Judith.
The first reference to Shakespeare as a London playwright came in 1592, when a fellow dramatist, Robert Greene, wrote derogatorily of him on his deathbed. It is believed that Shakespeare had written the three parts of Henry VI by that point.
The beginning of the 17th century saw the performance of the first of his great tragedies, Hamlet. During the next decade, Shakespeare produced such masterpieces as Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest. In 1609, his sonnets, probably written during the 1590s, were published.
Shakespeare died in Stratford-on-Avon on 23 April 1616. Today, nearly 400 years later, his plays are performed and read more often and in more nations than ever before.
Information courtesy of: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/william-shakespeare-born.
