Hysterical News Agency Staff Reporter

News from Madison Avenue, NYC overnight. The question will be investigated as to how different the world would be if Shakespeare had limited himself to supplying quotes for the building trade only.

Professor Stanley Horwitz of Yale, a leading authority on all things Shakespeare, has called it an interesting and fascinating development and anticipates ‘The History Maintenance Commission reports with bawdy enthusiasm.”

Shakespeare: The Tale of the Tape

1564

William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23. Parts II and III follow in due course. Shakespeare is the third child of glove maker John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. Mary finds her new son a bit of a handful and curses her husband’s cost cutting decision to reduce the fingers on his gloves to three.

1569

WIlliam Shakespeare commences his formal education at King’s New School in Stratford-upon-Avon. The school has just introduced the rack for minor dismeanours. Replacing the thumbscrew as the first resort for corporal punishment.

1571

King’s New School wins the National Basketball Cup.

1575

Shakespeare commences an impressive writing regime. The first week sees him write a Tragedy on Monday, a Comedy on Tuesday, a Tragedy Wednesday, another Comedy on Thursday and a Tragedy on Friday. By the end of the Week the school matron suspects Shakespeare is bipolar.

1580

Short on money Shakespeare tries his hand as a nude model for art classes. Although he only gets his kit off the once, on the evening of September 15 at Stratford-upon-Avon Adults Centre of Learning, it becomes the first case on record of anyone studying Shakespeare.

1581

Shakespeare undertakes a correspondence course titled ‘How to Become a Tudor Propagandist’. This includes sections on How to make Henry VII appear less Welsh, How to make Henry VIII appear more the loyal husband type. And How to make Edward VI appear….as he was always on his sickbed!

1582

Marries Anne Hathaway. She is 26 and he is 18. Anne has the first of their three children.

1585

Shakespeare commences a seven year period from here to 1592 when nothing is known about him and no record exists of him. It’s speculated that he must’ve been on the Tudor equivalent of an NHS waiting list.

1594

Shakespeare’s plays are performed by The Lord Chamberlain’s men – a company in which Shakespeare has a stake. Shakespeare becomes a wealthy man.

1597

Shakespeare buys the second largest house in Stratford as he divides his time between his birthplace and London.

1599

The company build their own theatre called The Globe on the south bank of the River Thames. But due to outbreaks of bubonic plague it is closed for long periods during its first decade of existence.

1603

The new Stuart king James I awards the company a patent and it changes its name to The King’s Men.

1616

23 April Shakespeare dies on his birthday. In his will he famously leaves his second best bed to his wife.

1623

Two actor friends of Shakespeare publish the First Folio definitive collection of all his plays except two. The volume’s preface by Ben Jonson hails Shakespeare’s work as ‘not of an age, but for all time’. Other eminent writers and actors such as Richard