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Eugene Schieffelin hoped to introduce into North America every bird mentioned by Shakespeare. He imported starlings from England and released them in Manhattan in 1890 and 1891. Starlings soon started to drive native birds out of their habitats, ate massive amounts of crops, and spread disease.
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More than 410 feature-length film and TV versions of William Shakespeare’s plays have been produced, making Shakespeare the most filmed author ever in any language.
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Shakespeare became wealthy by hoarding grain, and reselling at inflated prices during a period of famine. He used the profits for money-lending activity and was pursued by authorities for tax evasion and was prosecuted for hoarding grain.
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The English word weird originally meant ‘having the power to control fate’, which is why Shakespeare named his witches in Macbeth The Weird Sisters. Later depictions of them dressed in odd and strange ways led to the current definition of the word.
Shakespeare intentionally made grammatical errors to heighten the attention of his audiences before key points in his plays – the technique is called ‘functional shift’ and the use of it keeps the brain alive.
In 1890, 60 common starlings were released in Central Park in an attempt to introduce every bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare to America. They became a pest, and there are currently 150 million of them.