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                                    Photo: Nik Milner

                                                          William Shakespeare

Timeline:
bullet About 1564: Shakespeare is born, the third of eight children. Joan and Margaret died young, and so did Anne. The rest of the siblings are Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund. William lived in Stratford.
bullet 1582: Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway, and they have three children; the eldest Susanna, and the twins Judith and Hamnet.
bullet 1592: Shakespeare’s play Henry VI Part I is performed in London at the Rose Theatre.
bullet 1592-1596: Shakespeare writes poetry, sonnets, and plays, and acts with a Company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
bullet 1596: Hamnet, Shakespeare’s son, dies.
bullet 1597: Shakespeare buys one of the biggest houses in Stratford and gets in trouble with the law for hoarding corn to earn a profit if prices went up.
bullet 1598: Shakespeare and his friends dismantle a theatre and move it across London Bridge to Southwark, and named it the Globe Theatre. They did this because the landlord asked for too much rent. When the case came to court, William Shakespeare and his friends won because the landlord could charge rent for the land, not the theatre.
bullet 1602: Shakespeare puts on Twelfth Night in a hall still standing today. He buys a cottage and land in Stratford.
bullet 1603: When King James takes the English throne, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men is changed to the King’s Men. The King’s Men is the best theatre company at this time.
bullet 1607: Edmund, William’s brother dies, and Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna marries John Hall.
bullet 1612: William’s brother Gilbert dies.
bullet 1613: Richard, Williams only brother left, dies. The Globe Theatre burns down.
bullet 1616: William writes his will, and dies at age 52.  

  Timeline of Shakespeare’s Plays

  • Henry VI 1590-1592?
  • The Comedy of Errors 1592?
  • The Taming of the Shrew 1593?
  • Richard III 1593?
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona 1594?
  • Love’s Labor’s Lost 1594?
  • Titus Andronicus 1594?
  • Richard II 1595?
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1595?
  • Romeo and Juliet 1595?
  • The Merchant of Venice 1596?
  • Henry IV 1597?
  • Henry V about 1598?
  • Much Ado about Nothing 1599?
  • As You Like It 1599?
  • Julius Caesar 1599?
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor 1599?
  • Twelfth Night 1600?
  • Hamlet 1601?
  • All’s Well that Ends Well 1602?
  • Othello 1604?
  • Measure for Measure 1604?
  • King Lear 1605?
  • Antony and Cleopatra 1606?
  • Macbeth 1606?
  • Timon of Athens 1608?
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre 1608?
  • Cymbeline 1610?
  • The Winter’s Tale 1610?
  • The Tempest 1611?
  • Henry VIII 1613?
  • The Two Noble Kinsmen 1613?