Shakespeare, Cervantes & World Book Day - April 23

On this day in 1616 both William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died, thus prompting UNESCO to declare today "World Book and Copyright Day." The declaration may also have been inspired by a third death on this day, that of William Wordsworth in 1850. As April 23 is also the generally accepted date of Shakespeare's birth (based on baptismal records), the day is even more momentous.
On the other hand, some say that Cervantes really died on April 22; and in any case, the claim that both died on the same day is misleading, since it relies on a calculation correlating the new Gregorian calendar of Cervantes's Spain to the old Julian calendar still in use in Shakespeare's England.

The year 2012 also marks the 80th anniversary of the Index Translationum. This international bibliography of translation provides a unique tool for the monitoring of translation flows in the world.