William Shakespeare's Birthday

It's the birthday of William Shakespeare, (books by this author) born in Stratford-on-Avon, England (1564), in a modest room above the shop on Henley Street where his father, John, made and sold gloves. As a teenager he married Anne Hathaway, an older woman. They had three children before Shakespeare went off to London to achieve greatness in the theater. By 1595, he was acting and writing plays for a theater company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and in 1599 he became a part-owner of the Globe Playhouse. Shakespeare returned to Stratford in about 1610, having written 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Stratford-on-Avon is now the second most popular tourist destination in England, after London.