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Apr 23, 1564
1564
William Shakespeare is born in Stratford upon Avon to local tanner John and Mary Shakespeare. His actual birthday is unknown but assumed and celebrated today on April the 23rd, just three days before his baptism was recorded in the Parish register of the Holy Trinity Church on April the 26th. -
Period: Apr 23, 1564 to
The Life of Shakespeare
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Feb 2, 1571
1571
Shakespeare is likely to have begun his formal education. By local tradition, children in the Stratford area, entered the local grammar school at age seven. -
Feb 2, 1575
1575
Queen Elizabeth pays a visit to Kenilworth Castle, just a short journey from Stratford. Legend has it that an impressionable eleven year old William saw the Queen’s procession, and recreated it several times later in his historical and dramatic plays. -
Feb 2, 1582
1582
Shakespeare is in love... At age 18, he marries the considerably older Anne Hathaway (26 years old) from Shottery on November the 27th at Temple Grafton, a village just five short miles from Stratford. -
1583
Susanna, William and Anne Shakespeare’s first child who lives a full 66 years, is born just five months after Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway’s wedding (May 26th). Illegitimacy was not uncommon in the 1500s -
1585
Shakespeare is believed to have left his family in Stratford to join a company of actors as both playwright and performer, starting his career in theatre. Shakespeare’s twins, Judith and Hamnet are born, (February 2) Hamnet living only eleven years whileJudith lived 77years . -
1590
Shakespeare is believed by most academics to have written his very first play, Henry VI, Part One in this year. -
1591
Shakespeare is again believed to have written Henry VI, Part Two and Henry VI, Part III. -
1592
Shakespeare begins to be noticed as a force within London theatre; Robert Greene’s Groatworth of Wit famously calls Shakespeare an "upstart crow". He attacks Shakespeare as lacking originality since he borrows ideas from other for his own plays. Academics see this criticism as proof that Shakespeare was in London at this time.(Theatres in London close because of the plague). -
1595
A busy year for Shakespeare as he is thought to have composed Richard II performed that very same year, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, thought to be composed for a wedding and the greatest love story of all time, Romeo and Juliet. -
1596
The Merry Wives of Windsor is thought to have been written. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men lose their original patron, Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon and Lord Chamberlain to be replaced by his brother George Carey, Second Lord Hunsdon, who succeeds his late brother. -
1598
William is thought to have written the play Henry IV, Part Two and Shakespeare’s reputation as an actor is confirmed his performance in Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humor which clearly lists his name as a principal actor in the London play. -
1599
The Major shareholders of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men lease land from Nicholas Brend, The Globe theatre opening later that same year. Julius Caesar is performed at the Globe Theatre for the first known time on September the 21st according to German tourist Thomas Platter’s diary. John Weever praises Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, The Rape of Lucrece and Venus Adonis in the poem Ad Guglielmum Shakespeare. -
1607
Hamlet and Richard III are performed aboard the British ship Dragon off the west coast of Africa at Sierra Leone. -
1608
The King’s Men take on a twenty-one year lease of London’s first permanently enclosed theatre, the Blackfriars Theatre in this year. Notes on stage directions, suggest The Tempest was penned with a performance at this theatre in mind.
(The return of the plague forces a closure of all playhouses and theatres from the spring of 1608 through to early 1610). -
1613
The Globe Theatre burns to the ground. The Two Noble Kinsmen is penned. A 1634 entry within the Stationer’s Registry confirms that both William Shakespeare and John Fletcher composed this play. -
1614
The Globe Theatre re-opens. -
1616
William dies on April 23rd, his burial being recorded in the Stratford Holy Church Register two days later. -
1623
Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway dies, the same year, and fellow actors John Hemminges and Henry Condell gather together and publish for the first time, 36 of Shakespeare’s 37 plays in a collection known as The First Folio
