Do you mean the historical background regarding Julius Caesar? If so, in 1599, when Julius Caesar was first performed, Queen Elizabeth I, the Tudor Queen, was in the final years of her 45-year reign (1558-1603). It was a period of history called the "Age of Discovery," a time of scientific growth, a rebirth of the arts, and exploration of the recently discovered continents of North and South America. Historical plays were popular during Shakespeare's lifetime and people were eager to learn about worlds other than their own. A play like Julius Caesar taught them about Roman history, and at the same time, provided them with a mirror of their own society-a peacetime monarchy after a hundred years of warfare and before the Civil War that began in 1642.