Who was William Shakespeare?

Welcome to History's Not Boring! Join hosts Mira and Finn as we travel all the way back to the year 1564 to meet the greatest writer in the English language! Have you ever used the words "eyeball," "bedroom," or "lonely"? You can thank William Shakespeare! Even though he left school when he was only 14 years old, Shakespeare grew up to invent over 1,700 brand-new words that we still use today! How cool is that?!

But that's not all! He also wrote 37 famous plays, like the magical A Midsummer Night's Dream and the dramatic Romeo and Juliet, plus 154 beautiful poems called sonnets. He even helped build the incredible Globe Theatre in London, a massive wooden stage where thousands of cheering fans came to watch his exciting stories come to life!

Get ready to set the stage and discover how a boy from a bustling market town in England changed the world of reading, writing, and acting forever! Grab a seat in the audience and let's explore the amazing, word-filled world of William Shakespeare!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. Hey Finn, did you know that the words eyeball, bedroom, lonely, swagger, and alligator were all invented by the exact same person?

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Wait, what? Someone actually invented the word eyeball and alligator. That is crazy. Who was it?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

The one and only William Shakespeare. He is known all around the world as the absolute greatest writer in the English language. Shakespeare?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

I've definitely heard of him. Didn't he wear those funny white ruffled collars that look like giant coffee filters?

SPEAKER_00 0:41

He sure did. They were called ruffs, and they were very stylish back then. And Finn, the timing of this episode is absolutely incredible! Today is Sunday, April 26, 2026. Did you know that exactly 462 years ago today, on April 26, 1564, William Shakespeare was baptised. No way! That means we are right around his actual birthday! Exactly! Historians don't have his actual birth certificate, but they believe his birthday was probably just three days earlier, on April 23, 1564. So today we are travelling back in time to the 1500s to meet the man who completely changed how we speak.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I am so ready for this. Let's go time travel!

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Let's set the stage. The year is 1564. We are in a bustling market town in England called Stratford upon Avon.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Stratford upon Avon? That's a mouthful. What was it actually like to live there?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Imagine muddy, unpaved streets, big timber-framed houses with thatched roofs, and absolutely no electricity, no cars, and no plumbing. William's father, John Shakespeare, was a glover. He made fancy, expensive leather gloves for rich people, and he was even the town's mayor for a while.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Mayor? So William was kind of a big deal in his hometown?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

A little bit. Because his dad was an important town official, William got to go to the local King Edward VI grammar school for free. He started when he was about seven years old.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Did they learn maths and science and history like we do? Nope.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

They studied Latin almost all day, six days a week. Imagine sitting on hard wooden benches from six o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the evening, just memorising ancient Latin poetry.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Oh, six in the morning until five at night. That sounds completely exhausting. I would fall asleep.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

It was really strict, but all those epic stories he read in school really sparked his imagination. However, when William was around 14 years old, everything suddenly changed. His father lost all his money and got into terrible debt. Oh no! What happened to William? He had to leave school at 14 to help his family survive. He never got to go to a fancy university like other famous writers. Most people would have just worked a normal job in the town forever.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

But not William Shakespeare, right? He was destined for greatness.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Right. He had way bigger plans than making leather gloves for the rest of his life. After he left school, there are about seven years where nobody knows exactly what William did. Historians actually call them the Lost Years.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Wait, he just vanished into thin air? But he'd join a circus, become a pirate.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

We wish we knew. Some people think he was a schoolteacher, others think he was hiding out. But by the year 1592, he suddenly pops up in the biggest, loudest, smelliest city in England. London. London? How big was it back then? It had about 200,000 people. It was incredibly crowded, with narrow winding streets, stray animals everywhere, and the River Thames packed with boats. And William was there to do one thing: write and act in plays. Like putting on giant shows for huge crowds. Exactly! He eventually joined a famous theatre company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men. And William wasn't just writing one type of play. Over his lifetime, he wrote 37 plays in total.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

37? That is a massive amount of writing. What were they about?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Everything you can imagine. He wrote heartbreaking tragedies that make you cry, like Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. He wrote hilarious comedies full of mistaken identities, fairies and magic, like a Midsummer Night's Dream. And he wrote histories packed with kings, queens, and epic sword battles. Were the plays popular with the people in London? Oh, people went absolutely crazy for them. But there was a big problem. Sometimes a terrible disease called the bubonic plague would spread through London. When that happened, the city forced all the theatres to close down for months to stop the sickness from spreading. No theatres?

SPEAKER_01 5:29

But that was his job. How did he make any money?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

He didn't just sit around. When the theatres closed, he pivoted and wrote poetry. He ended up writing 154 beautiful poems called sonnets. The guy just couldn't stop writing. By 1599, William and his acting company were making so much money that they decided to build their very own theatre. They called it the Globe. The Globe? Was it shaped like a giant ball? Sort of. It was shaped like a giant wooden polygon, basically a ring, and it was completely open to the sky in the middle. It was almost 100 feet across and could hold a whopping 3,000 people.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

3,000 people? That is enough to fill an entire basketball arena.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yes, and the cheapest tickets were only one single penny. Those people had to stand right in front of the stage, in the dirt, for the entire three-hour play. They were called the Groundlings.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Standing in the dirt for three hours? Did they at least have bathrooms?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Nope, no bathrooms at all. They just stood packed tightly together. In the hot summer, when nobody took baths, the groundlings were nicknamed the Stinkards.

unknown 6:53

Haha!

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Ew, the Stinkards!

SPEAKER_01 6:56

That is so gross.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

The Globe was a massive success. But then, on June 29, 1613, a terrifying disaster struck. They were performing a play about King Henry VIII. To make it super exciting, they fired a real cannon on stage.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Wait, a real cannon? Inside a wooden theatre with 3,000 people.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yes, and it went horribly wrong. Sparks from the cannon flew up and landed directly on the thatched straw roof. Within minutes, the entire theatre caught fire. The flames spread so fast that it burned completely to the ground in less than an hour. Oh no, that's a huge fire! Did everyone get out safely? Miraculously, all 3,000 people survived. Nobody died. But there was one extremely close call. A man's pants actually caught on fire as he was trying to escape. His pants? How did he put them out in the middle of a burning building? Someone standing next to him heroically grabbed a heavy bottle of ale, which is a type of drink, and poured the whole thing all over his flaming pants to extinguish the fire.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

That is the funniest and craziest rescue I've ever heard. Saved by a drink.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

They actually rebuilt the Globe Theatre a year later, this time with a fireproof tile roof. But William Shakespeare's true legacy isn't the building, it's the millions of words he left behind.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Right. You mentioned earlier that he invented words like eyeball and bedroom. How do you even invent a word?

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Well, if he couldn't find the perfect word to describe a feeling or an object, he just made one up. He would take two existing words and stick them together, or turn a noun into a verb, or add a prefix. He is actually credited with introducing over 1,700 words to the English language.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

1,700? That is mind-blowing. Give me some more examples.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Alright. Next time you talk, remember Shakespeare invented puking, swagger, lonely, gossip, downstairs, and even jaded.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

He invented puking? And swagger? That means we speak Shakespeare every single day at school, without even knowing it.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

We really do. William Shakespeare eventually retired to his hometown and died on April 23, 1616, at the age of 52.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

52 is pretty young. But his amazing stories lived on, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

They did way more than just live on. Seven years after he died, two of his acting friends collected 36 of his plays and published them in a giant, expensive book called The First Folio. If they hadn't done that, historians think we might have lost half of his plays forever. Phew! Good thing he had awesome loyal friends. Today, more than 400 years later, his plays are translated into over a hundred different languages. They are still performed every single day around the world. They've been turned into massive Hollywood movies, Broadway musicals, and even cartoon space adventures.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Because a great story about love, jealousy, or epic battles is a great story, no matter what year it is.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Alright, Finn, we've learnt so many mind-blowing facts today, so it is time for the quiz. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 10:32

I'm ready. Hit me with those Shakespeare facts.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

First question. In what English market town was William Shakespeare born? Next one. How many plays did he write in his lifetime before he died? Question three. What was the name of the famous circular wooden theatre he helped build in London? Here's number four. How many people could fit inside that huge theatre to watch a play? Last question. What drink was used to put out a man's flaming pants when the theatre caught fire? Great job! Let's see how you did. The first answer is, he was born in the town of Stratford upon Avon. For question two, he wrote an amazing 37 plays. Number three, the answer is the famous theatre was called the Globe. Question four, it was incredibly massive and could hold 3,000 people. And the final answer is a bottle of ale was poured on his pants to save him. That was so much fun! I still can't believe one single person invented over 1700 words we still use today.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

I know! Next time I use the word eyeball, or say someone has swagger, I'm going to think of William Shakespeare in his giant ruffled collar.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Same here. Hey listeners, if you learned a cool new word today, or just love the story of the flaming pants, we'd love it if you gave us a five-star review. Just scroll down on your podcast app and tap those five stars right now.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, it really helps our show grow. Oh, and don't forget to check out our site, kidopoly.com. We've got tons of fun learning games, puzzles, and awesome activities waiting for you.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

And if you want a special shout out on the show, or just want to tell us your favourite Shakespeare play, send us an email at hello at kidopoly.com.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

We love hearing from you. Maybe you can even write us a poem like Shakespeare.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

What a great idea! Thanks for exploring the amazing past with us. See you next time on History's Not Boring. Bye, everyone.