Full Name: William Shakespeare Profession: Playwright, Poet, and Actor Nationality: British (English) Born: c. April 23, 1564 Birthplace: Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England Generation: Renaissance / Tudor Era Chinese Zodiac: Rat Zodiac Sign: Taurus Age in 2026: Deceased (would have been 462 years old) Marital Status: Married Children: 3 — Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith Cause of Death: Unknown; most likely a fever or acute illness; died April 23, 1616, at the age of 52 Description: William Shakespeare, universally acclaimed as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist, was born circa April 23, 1564, in the market town of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, the third of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a prosperous glover and alderman, and Mary Arden, daughter of an affluent landowning family; baptized on April 26, 1564, at Holy Trinity Church, his exact birth date remains traditionally observed as April 23, coinciding with Saint George's Day, the patron saint of England; at the age of eighteen, in November 1582, he married Anne Hathaway, who was twenty-six and already pregnant with their first child, Susanna, born in May 1583, followed by twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585, making him a devoted family man despite long periods spent in London for his theatrical career; Shakespeare moved to London in the late 1580s and quickly rose to prominence as an actor, playwright, and part-owner of the Globe Theatre, becoming a key member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later renamed the King's Men under the patronage of King James I; over the course of his extraordinary career spanning roughly two decades from the early 1590s to circa 1613, he wrote at least 37 plays encompassing tragedies, comedies, histories, and romances — including timeless masterpieces such as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, and The Merchant of Venice — as well as 154 sonnets and two major narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece; his works explored the full spectrum of human experience — love, jealousy, ambition, betrayal, grief, humor, and redemption — with a psychological depth and linguistic richness that set him apart as a singular genius; Shakespeare is credited with inventing over 1,700 words and expressions still used in the English language today, and his influence on literature, theatre, philosophy, and culture is immeasurable and unrivaled across more than four centuries; after retiring from the stage around 1613, he returned to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he lived out his final years; he died on April 23, 1616 — the very date traditionally attributed to his birth — at the age of 52, and was interred on April 25, 1616, in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon; the exact cause of his death was never recorded, though scholars and historians have long speculated it may have been a fever, typhus, or another illness of the era, with some accounts suggesting he fell ill following a celebratory gathering with fellow playwrights Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton; his will, drawn up just a month before his death on March 25, 1616, famously bequeathed his second-best bed to his wife Anne Hathaway, a detail that has fascinated biographers for centuries; Shakespeare's works have been translated into every major language on earth and are performed more often than those of any other playwright in history; His birthplace on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon is now one of the most visited literary landmarks in the world; he remains the defining symbol of English literary genius, the Bard of Avon, whose legacy transcends borders, generations, and centuries, making him without question the single most famous person ever born on the 23rd of April.