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Sometime around the year 1350, at the end of the Middle Ages, Venice and Genoa, began to trade extensively with the East. With trade came more knowledge and growing curiosity about the world. Soon, Italy was leading the way on a flowering of European learning known as the Renaissance. Commerce, science, and the arts blossomed as people shifted their focus to the interests and pursuits of human life here on earth.

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The Renaissance was slow to come to England. The delay was caused mainly by civil war between two great families, or houses claiming the English throne (House of York and House of Lancaster). The conflict ended in 1485. Henry VII takes the throne and marries Anne Boleyn, they have a daughter, Elizabeth. Elizabeth took the throne and she proved to be one of the strongest monarchs that England has ever known.

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The reign of Elizabeth I is often seen as a golden age in English history. Treading a moderate and frugal path, Elizabeth brought economic and political stability to the nation, thus allowing commerce and culture to thrive. Practical inventions improved transportation at home. Craft workers created lovely wares for the homes of the wealthy. Musicians composed fine works for the royal court, and literature thrived, peaking with the plays of William Shakespeare. London became a bustling capital.

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England's first successful public theater opened in 1576, known simply as the Theatre, it was built by an actor named James Burbage. Since officials had banned the performance of plays in London, Burbage built his theatre in an Shakespeare's earliest plays were first performed here, including The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.

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No floor plans of the Theater or the Globe survive, but people's descriptions and sketches of similar buildings suggest what they were like. They were either round or octagonal, with a central stage open to the sky. The stage stretched into an area called the pit, where theatergoers called groundlings paid just a penny to stand and watch the play.

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William Shakespeare, Playwright and Poet

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William Shakespeare, Playwright and Poet

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William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is widely revered as one of England's greatest writers. Four centuries after his dead, his plays are still read and performed every day. Who was this remarkable author of so many masterpieces? In actual fact, we know very little about him.

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Shakespeare grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon, a busy market town on the Avon River about 75 miles northwest of London. Church and town records indicate that his mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a wealthy farmer who owned the land on which Shakespeare's grandfather lives. Shakespeare most likely went to the local grammar school, where he would have studied Latin and Greek as well as English and World History.

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In 1582, when he was eighteen, Shakespeare married a woman maned Anne Hathaway and had three children with her, including a set of twins.

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In 1588, King Philip sent an armada to invade England. At the time, Spain was the most powerful nation on Earth. English soundly defeated the invading forces. The was for the Queen.

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By 1592 he had moved to London, where he gravitated to the theater. Starting off an actor, he soon began writing plays as well. Two years later he had become the principal playwright of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Shakespeare was not just a performer and a playwright, however; he was also part owner to the theater company. It was at the Globe that many of Shakespeare's later masterpieces premiered, probably beginning with the The Tragedy of Julius Caesar in 1599.

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In 1602, Queen Elizabeth I died, and her Scottish cousin took the throne as James I. Partial to the theater James was particularly supportive of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which had emerged as one of the two best acting companies in the land.

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In 1609, Shakespeare's acting company began staging plays in the Blackfriars Theatre as well as the Globe. Located in London proper, the Blackfriars was different from the earlier theaters in which Shakespeare's plays were performed. It was one of the first English theaters to use artificial lighting, an innovation that allowed for nighttime performances.