1. Shakespeare married an older woman who was three months pregnant at the time.

2. Nobody knows what Shakespeare did between 1585 and 1592.

3. Was born and died on April 23

4. Used the word dog or dogs over 200 times in his works

5. Invented the word assassination

6. Had an earring in his left ear

7. Wrote 154 sonnets

8. Wrote 37 plays

9. Lived in England during the Renaissance

10. Lived through the Black Death

11. Never published any of his own plays, they were all published by his fellow actors

12. None of his plays were acted out by women

13. There are only two authentic portraits of William Shakespeare

14.  Performed in many of his own plays

15. One of the most identified icons of England

16. Was known as the Bard of Stratford

17. Plays were performed only in the afternoon, by daylight

18. Shakespeare’s was said to have an extensive vocabular; his works contained more than 30,000 different words.

19. The only thing Shakespeare left to his wife in his will was the second best bed in the house.

20. Shakespeare did not go to college.

21.  Shakespeare’s family were all illiterate

22. Shakespeare’s grandchildren all died – he had no descendants

23. Based on textual evidence in the sonnets and some plays, some believe that Shakespeare was bisexual

24.Clothes were more important than the plays, as they were one of the main lurers, with exotic and foreign elements woven into them

25. Very little of Shakespeare’s life is known for certain. The majority is just speculation, or a projection of what we want to believe.

Collection of facts courtesy of The History Chanel, and absoluteshakespeare.com,