[1] William Shakespeare, one of the greatest authors of all time, was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. His actual birth date is uncertain, but most scholars believe he was born on or near April 23rd, 1564.

[2] We think he may have been educated in the King's School at Stratford because that would have been typical for a child with a father who was an alderman. What we do know is that he didn't go to university.

[3] We have a marriage record for Shakespeare to Anne Hathaway in 1585. We also have baptism records for a daughter and a set of twins. And we also know that his son, Hamnet, one of the twins, died.

[4] Shakespeare moved to London in the late 1580s. By the early 1590s, we know he's writing, and we know that he's acting.

[5] By 1597, Shakespeare had authored 15 of the 37 plays attributed to him, including Romeo and Juliet, Comedy of Errors, and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

[6] People think of William Shakespeare as an artist, a playwright. He was a pretty good businessman. - In 1599, he built the largest open-air amphitheater in London, the Globe Theatre.

[7] He was an entrepreneur. He knew his market. He knew how to cater to that market. He made shrewd real estate investments.

[8] Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, changed its name to the King's Men when King James became its patron in 1603. This was a mark of exceptional prestige.

[9] The different types of Shakespeare plays are separated into histories, comedies, tragedies, and then, later on, tragic comedies.

[10] Shakespeare's phrases, the ways he used words, are so common that people often get mixed up and can't remember if they came from the Bible or from Shakespeare.

[11] My grandmother used to say, when something bad happened, these were the slings and arrows⁽¹⁾ of everyday life. She was not an educated woman, and she didn't go to Shakespeare plays. She didn't get that one from the Bible.

[12] What scholars call Shakespeare's middle period, from 1595 to 1605, included such classic comedies as A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Much Ado About Nothing. He also produced Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth during this period.

[13] Right at the cusp, where Shakespeare begins to write Lear, it tips into what we could call the later Shakespeare, and this period produces Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest, Winter's Tale, Pericles, and Cymbeline.

[14] Shakespeare wrote great stories. For example, one of the stories starts with the king, who is tired. He doesn't want to govern anymore, so he says to his three daughters:

[15] "I'm going to separate the kingdom between the three of you, but it's going to be based on who tells me how much they love me. However much you love me, that's how much of the kingdom you're going to get."

[16] Now, that's going to make me sit up. I mean, what a way to start a story! And that's King Lear.

[17] Shakespeare was not only a playwright, he also was a poet. Partly because of economic necessity, during the early 1590s, plague closed the theaters in London, and there was quite a vogue for producing sonnets⁽²⁾.

[18] Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, in addition to several narrative poems. Shakespeare worked the English language, milked it for all it was worth. He made up words if it didn't give him the right words. He is one of the first professional writers.

[19] The details of William Shakespeare's death remain a mystery, but scholars believe he died on his birthday, April 23rd, 1616. In the 400 years since, Shakespeare's influence has only grown. His writing is the second most quoted after the Bible.

[20] He has been credited with introducing almost 3,000 words to the English language, and the Google search on Shakespeare returns more than 140 million results.

[21] Shakespeare talked about the human condition. He explains to us how we think, how we feel the human psyche. He eloquently explains it.

[22] In the 18th century, questions arose about the authorship of Shakespeare's work, given the vague details we know of his life, his lack of higher education, and the similarity of his plays to others of the day.

[23] Today, most scholars believe Shakespeare wrote all his plays and sonnets. - I would argue that Shakespeare's legacy is the most influential figure in human civilization.