How did Shakespeare change our world? In several ways.
From a piece in the New York Post...
1. Starlings.
On March 6, 1890, a New York pharmaceutical manufacturer named Eugene Schiefflin released 60 starlings into Central Park. His plan was to introduce every species of bird mentioned in Shakespeare into the New World. (Shakespeare mentions starlings once, in “Henry IV, Part One”) From those initial 60 birds, the starling population in North America has swollen to over 200 million individual birds. They have spread as far as the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Circle and, besides being a major nuisance for both farmers and city-dwellers, compete with many native species, including bluebirds and Northern Flickers. Shakespeare name-checked 43 bird species, but Schiefflin wasn’t successful with every one — morning larks, for instance, failed to prosper.
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