Shakespeare Trivia

There are a lot of things we don't know about William Shakespeare. Historians aren't even sure about his birthday or when exactly he started writing his plays. Despite the historical gaps, we still have more than a few nuggets of information about his life. Here are a few Shakespeare trivia:

• Shakespeare didn't go to university. Imagine that, one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time doesn't have a college degree. Doesn't it make you feel better?

  
  

• Shakespeare had quite a fondness for animals, in his writings at least. Around 180 animal species were mentioned more than 3,000 times in his works. Over 600 of the references are birds.

  
  

• There were a number of racist remarks in some of Shakespeare's plays. Being a Jew was employed as curse in Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Henry I part two. A line in Love's Labour Lost goes "Black is the badge of hell, the hue of dungeons and the scowl of night." Shakespeare would have never gotten away with it if he runs for President (or if he's even a friend of a presidential candidate) today.

  
  

• Aside from being a playwright, Shakespeare was also an actor and performed in his own plays as well as in other theater productions.

  
  

• Shakespeare was also a businessman and ventured as well into property development. Unlike his contemporaries, he didn't die a poor man as he owned considerable real estate properties.