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Do you remember the very first time you ever wrote something? Maybe it was a brief story for a class, or even a journal entry, or a strangely specific want list for Santa Claus. But what if it was preserved for all the world to see, 400 years from today? Some scholars think this is the very first play Shakespeare ever wrote.

It is tricky to say for sure, but many scholars think this play was written way back in 1590-1591, when Shakespeare was 26 years old. That is a decade before he'd get to heavy hitters such as Hamlet or Othello, and in this time, Shakespeare was still rising as a writer. It is nearly like his play was a work in progress: lots of folks think he really went back and revised his very first version of Henry VI, Part 2 to make it even better, later in his career.

This tetralogy is all about the Wars of the Roses (c. 1455-1485), a string of English civil wars fought between two branches of the Royal House of Plantagenet: the Lancasters (whose heraldic emblem was the red rose) and the Yorks (whose heraldic emblem was the white rose).

For those keeping score at home, here is what this means: 1) Henry has to give up two major parts of property in France, and two) Henry has selected to wed Margaret, a bad woman with no political advantages. Why? Because she is hot. The play looks at what happens after the honeymoon period is over, and how everything impacts Henry's right-hand person Gloucester.

If all this has you needing to hit the rest button, think again: Shakespeare totally up spices "history" with just a small fiction. Additionally, there's a bloody rebellion over grammar, prophecies out of witches, along with also a wannabe king fighting for the crown.

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