William Shakespeare Dies

William Shakespeare, the English playwright and poet widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, died in 1616 at Stratford-upon-Avon, the town of his birth. He had spent much of his career in London, where he wrote for and acted with the theatrical company later known as the King's Men.

His output included tragedies such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear, comedies including A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night, and histories such as Henry V and Richard III. Together they form the single most influential body of dramatic work in English.

Shakespeare also wrote narrative poems and a celebrated sequence of sonnets. Roughly half of his plays first appeared in print in the First Folio of 1623, assembled by fellow actors after his death. His characters, language, and dramatic invention have shaped literature and theater across the world for centuries.