One of many unfortunate truths about our modern culture is that it's often more politically

correct to embrace and amplify some goofy discredited conspiracy theory than it is to simply

accept our standard model of what history shows.

One of these that will seemingly never die is the fringe claim that the great bard himself

William Shakespeare never existed but was instead a composite of other authors who are actually

the ones who should be credited with his great works.

That's coming up next, Unskeptoid.

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You're listening to Skeptoid, I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com, Finding Shakespeare.

As any historical text on the subject will tell you, William Shakespeare was born in Stratford

upon Avon in England, probably in 1564, and died in his hometown in 1616.

He married and raised three children and had a successful career in theater in London.

No successful in fact that he was memorialized in effigy in the cathedral in Stratford upon

...