Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Shakespeare + Cows = More Milk. Seriously. A group of English farmers say their dairy cows produced 4% more milk after listening to actors perform scenes from The Merry Wives of Windsor. (source)
The phrase "the world's mine oyster" (2.2.2) comes from The Merry Wives of Windsor. Same goes for "What the dickens" (3.2.17). By the way, "dickens" is slang for "devil." (source)
Abe Lincoln was a big Shakespeare fan and even attended a U.S. performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1863. (source)
According to a popular theatrical tradition that began in the early 1700's, Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor because Queen Elizabeth I saw the Henry plays and wanted Shakespeare to write a spinoff about Falstaff in love. Word has it that she gave him only two weeks in which to do it. (source and source)
The word "frugal" appears in print for the first time ever in The Merry Wives of Windsor. (source)