Shakespearean Sleuthing

This marks the anniversary of the imagined date for the birth of Shakespeare's tragic character Juliet Capulet. The text of the famous play states that "On Lammas eve at night shall she be fourteen. That shall she, marry; I remember it well. Tis since the earthquake now eleven years 'an she be weaned." The earthquake occurred in 1580 and thus if the normal age of weaning of two years be assumed, Juliet would have been born in 1578.