William Shakespeare, born on April 23, 1564, was raised in a middle class family in Stratford. His father was the merchant and sometimes an alderman and high bailiff, this is equivalent to today's mayor. William went to grammar school but never went to a university. He ended up marrying an older woman, Anne Hathaway, age twenty-six, when he himself was merely eighteen years old. They had a daughter, Susanna, in 1583; two years later Anne had given birth to a pair of twins, Hamnet and Judith Shakespeare.
After their marriage, they moved from Stratford to London so William could follow his dreams of making the "big bucks" as a play-writer and an entertainer. Four years after moving to London, William became one of the main actors in a group called Lord Chamberlain's Men in 1595. This group performed for the royal family and anyone that could pay. Later in 1597, William and Anne went back to Stratford and bought one of the largest homes in Stratford along with acres upon acres of land.
A year later, William became a part owner in the new multi-purpose building called the Globe Theatre. This building became famous for the performance of many of William Shakespeare's popular plays. William Shakespeare wrote seventeen comedies, ten histories, and ten tragedies. He wrote one hundred and fifty-four sonnets. William also wrote five compassionate poems with the majority of them about love and romance. Although he had many amazing accomplishments, the thing that I thought was really astounding is that he invented the word, "assassination". The funny thing is that there is not a real defined difference between murder and assassination.
After William Shakespeare's death, two of the members in the Lord Chamberlain's Men took the original copies of William's artwork and composed it into a portfolio called the "First Folio."
