No writer will ever equal William Shakespeare's influence on the English language. Born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, "The Bard" was an actor and playwright who had staged his own shows in London by 1592. Though little is known about his early life, he forsooth proved himself a virtuoso for the ages. Expanding the boundaries of the English language, Shakespeare penned dozens of plays -- from enduring tragedies like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Othello, to bawdy comedies like A Midsummer Night's Dream -- plus more than 150 sonnets during his towering career. He shuffled off this mortal coil in 1616, but more than half a millennium later, his works are still read and produced around the world, including at a modern thatched-roof reconstruction of his troupe's Globe Theatre in London.
