A tour of London

William Shakespeare

shakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor. He was born on April 26 1564 in Stratford upon Avon. His father was a successful local businessman and his mother was the daughter of a landowner. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway and they had three children. After his marriage information about his life became very rare but he is thought to have spent most of his time in London writing and performing in his plays.

Shakespeare produced most of his work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories and these works are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase he wrote romances and collaborated with other playwrights.

Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Martin Luther king, Jr.

Martin Luther KingCivil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther king, Jr., born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929 dedicated his life to achieving equality and justice for all Americans of all colours.

King experienced racial prejudice early in life. Segregation was both law and custom in the south and other parts of America. King believed that peaceful resistance to unjust law was the best way to bring about social change. In his lifetime he was arrested several times but he never backed down in his stand against racism. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed racial segregation in publically-owned facilities. King received the Nobel Prize for peace in Oslo on December 10, 1964. He was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968 on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

Thanks to the efforts of a humble Baptist preacher, the law is bound to uphold equal rights for all people across the country regardless of race, colour or creed. Americans honour the civil rights activist on the third Monday of January each year, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.