It might surprise you to know that William Shakespeare was actually not the first author to tell the story of Romeo and Juliet. His play is heavily based on Arthur Brooke's poem, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. Even before that, the story was published in both French and Italian. There are some differences among the translations, but the major conflict, plot events, and character names remain quite unchanged. These earlier versions of the story, as well as other historical texts which mention them, relate that the legend is based on true events surrounding a couple who died in 1303.
There is no definitive evidence proving the existence of the real-life Romeo and Juliet, but nonetheless, the story had been a part of European literature for several centuries prior to Shakespeare's work.
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