Lester Pearson and Shakespeare -- twins 333 years apart

A notwithstanding clause, methinks...

Biography of the day at the DBC Online is Lester Pearson, who turns out to share a birthday with William Shakespeare, who is 450 today. Pearson is only 117.

In the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik notes the bard's birthday by, among other things, considering the claims to authenticity of the "Sanders" portrait of Shakespeare, which he calls the "Canadian" image of Shakespeare  -- not just Canadian-owned and Canadian-verified, but showing a "civil and agreeable" Shakespeare.

But I see it is subscribers only, and cannot link.

Update, April 24:  Roderick Benns of Leaders and Legacies points out that Stephen Harper and Willie Nelson share a birthday, April 30. You have a week to suss out the historical significance of that one.