William Shakespeare

1564

William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, to local tanner John Shakespeare and his wife Mary. He was baptized on April 26^rd.

1582

Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway at Temple Grafton.

1589

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is the first play by William Shakespeare to be officially recorded recorded (in Francis Meres’ Palladis Tamia). Among his early works are The Taming of the Shrew, King HenryVI, Richard III, Titus Andronicus and Edward III.

1594

Shakespeare’s plays are exclusively performed by Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an actors company that included Shakespeare. Among their productions are Shakespeare’s comedies The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour’s Lost, Love’s Labour's Won, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing ,A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like it, Measure for Measure, All's Well That Ends Well,), but also tragedies (Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, possibly Troilus and Cressida, Othello, King Lear, Timon of Athens, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, , Coriolanus), history plays (Richard II, King John, Henry IV, Henry V, Julius Caesar) and a group of late plays called romances (The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, Cymbeline, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre).

1599

The Globe Theatre (“the Wooden O”) is built in the suburb of Southwark on the south bank of the Thames.

1602

Hamlet and Twelfth Night are performed in London.

1603

Having been awarded a royal patent by King James I (the successor of Queen Elizabeth I.), Shakespeare’s company changed its name to the King’s Men.

1609

As the last of Shakespeare’s non-dramatic works to be printed, the Sonnets are published. His other poems include A Lover's Complaint, The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Rape of Lucrece, The Passionate Pilgrim and Venus and Adonis.

1613

The Globe Theatre in London is consumed by a fire, caused by a cannon shot during a performance of Henry VIII.

1616

As recorded in the Stratford Holy Church Register, Shakespeare dies on April 23^rd. --- A collection of Shakespeare’s works is published by his fellow playwright Ben Jonson.

1623

The First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s works, Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, is published and becomes one of the most influential books in the English language.

1642

The Puritans close down all theatres for religious reasons, including the Globe.

1740

Peter Scheemakers creates a statue of Shakespeare for Poets’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, London.

1756

Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare, a garden folly erected on the north bank of the River Thames at Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is erected by actor David Garrick.

1771

On October 14^th, on occasion of Frankfurt’s Shakespeare Day, German classicist poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe gives his speech Zum Schäkespears Tag (Upon Shakespeare’s Day).

1786

Engraver and publisher John Boydell starts the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery to foster a school of British history painting.

1797

German critic and poet August Wilhelm Schlegel publishes the first volume of his influential German translation of seventeen works of Shakespeare (completed in 1810). 

1857

In The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded by Delia Bacon, the author presents the first theory concerning the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, attributing them to a committee headed by Francis Bacon. The Shakespeare authorship question is still hotly debated. Poets identified as authors of Shakespeare’s plays include Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Walter Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Miguel de Cervantes and a host of other notable figures of the time.

1874

John Quincy Adams Ward’s statue of Shakespeare in New York’s Central Park is unveiled. Other statues of Shakespeare in the USA can be found in Chicago (Lincoln Park) and Washington (Library of Congress).

1874

Giovanni Fontana’s statue of William Shakespeare is erected in the center of Leicester Square Gardens in London.

1879

The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre is opened in Stratford-upon-Avon.

1899

William Kennedy Dickson and Walter Pfeffer Dando’s silent film King John becomes the earliest known film adaption of one of Shakespeare’s plays. Today, more than 1,300 screen adaptions exist. --- Edward Dowden publishes the first volume of the Arden Shakespeare, an edition of Hamlet.

1901

George Bernard Shaw criticizes Shakespeare in the preface to his collection Three Plays for Puritans for not engaging with social problems, coining the term “bardolatry” for unjustified adoration of Shakespeare.

1935

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, or OSF, is founded in Ashland, Oregon.

1964

Kolkata’s central business street, Theatre Road, is renamed Shakespeare Sarani.

1972

The Shakespeare Association of America (SAA) is founded, a non-profit organization for the advanced academic study of William Shakespeare's plays and poems and their cultural and theatrical contexts.

1978

The BBC releases the BBC Television Shakespeare, a complete series of Shakespeare’s works on television.

1982

The first three volumes of the Oxford Shakespeare series are published, followed in 1986 by a Complete Works edition by John Jowett, William Montgomery, Gary Taylor and Stanley Wells. ---The Shakespeare Bulletin is founded, an academic journal focused on performance studies and scholarly treatment of Shakespearean and early modern drama on stage and screen. --- The Shakespeare Center is established in New York City as home of the Riverside Shakespeare Company.

1983

An asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt is named after Shakespeare, 2985 Shakespeare. Other objects named after the poet include a bacterium isolated from a cooling tower in Stratford-upon-Avon, Legionella shakespearei, and a crater in the Shakespeare quadrangle of Mercury.

1988

The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia, is founded.

1997

A modern reconstruction of the theatre, named “Shakespeare’s Globe”, is opened within walking distance from the original site. Other modern reconstructions can be found in Toronto, New York City, Wellington, and Neuss (Germany).

1998

The American romantic period film Shakespeare in Love, directed by John Madden, becomes a box office hit.

2001

World Shakespeare BibliographyOnline is created.

2002

The British Shakespeare Association is founded.

2011

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip who are presented with the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

2014

The Gdański Teatr Szekspirowski (Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre) is opened in the Polish city of Gdańsk.

2016

The BBC celebrates the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death with a number of activities dedicated to “the Bard”, including a Shakespeare Eurovision Song Contest.