Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 17, 2017

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was an Irish playwright and critic who had a major influence on Western theatre, culture and politics. He was born in Dublin and moved to London in 1876 as a struggling writer and novelist. His first stage success was Arms and the Man in 1894; under the influence of  Henrik Ibsen he brought a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his often contentious political, social and religious ideas. He became a member of the gradualist Fabian Society, was a socialist pamphleteer and polemicist for over 50 years, and was instrumental in the foundation of the modern Labour Party. Many of his plays were critical and commercial successes, including Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). He was regarded as the leading dramatist of his generation, and was awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote prolifically until shortly before his death, aged 94.