William Shakespeare (/ekspr/; 26 April 1564 (baptised) 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded

d as the greatest writer in the English language and the [2] [3][nb world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England'snational poet and the "Bard of Avon". 2] [nb 3] His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, the authorship of some of which is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any [4] other playwright.
[1] [nb 1]

Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical [5] appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies andhistories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragediesuntil about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is [7] hailed, presciently, as "not of an age, but for all time." Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called [8] "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.
[6][nb 4]

Adolf Hitler (German: [adlf htl] ( listen); 20 April 1889 30 April 1945) was an Austrianborn German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP); National Socialist German Workers Party). He waschancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Fhrer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler was at the centre of Nazi Germany, World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust. Hitler was a decorated veteran of World War I. He joined the German Workers' Party (precursor of the NSDAP) in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'tat in Munich, known as the Beer Hall Putsch. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into theThird Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. Hitler's aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. To this end, his foreign and domestic policies had the aim of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, resulting in the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. In June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. Although initially successful, the Russian campaign turned disastrous. By 1943, Germany was forced onto the defensive and suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time partner, Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. Hitler's aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the primary cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's leadership and racially motivated ideology, the regime was responsible for the genocide of at least 5.5 million Jews, and millions of other people whom he and his followers deemed racially inferior.

The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London.

Born

Baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire,England

Died

23 April 1616 (aged 52) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Occupation

Playwright, poet, actor

Period

English Renaissance

Spouse(s)

Anne Hathaway (m. 15821616)

Children

Susanna Hall Hamnet Shakespeare Judith Quiney John Shakespeare (father) Mary Shakespeare (mother)

Relative(s)

Signature