Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Taming of the Shrew was written by Shakespeare between 1590 and 1592, with most scholars placing it at late 1591 or early 1592. A related play, A Shrew, was registered on the 2nd of May 1594, providing the outer boundary for the date.
The play follows Petruchio, who courts and marries Katherina, the assertive elder daughter of Baptista Minola in Padua, and then subjects her to psychological torments to make her obedient. A subplot follows multiple suitors competing for Katherina's younger sister Bianca through a series of disguises and deceptions. The play is itself nested inside a framing story in which a nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Christopher Sly into believing he is a lord.
The play has been debated as misogynistic since its first performance. Critics including Phyllis Rackin and George Bernard Shaw have argued it validates oppressive assumptions about women. Directors such as Conall Morrison of the RSC 2008 production have read it as a satire condemning male domination, while others such as Jonathan Miller argue it reflects genuine early modern beliefs about social order without endorsing them.
The Taming of the Shrew is closely related to a separate Elizabethan play, A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called the taming of a Shrew, which has nearly the same plot but different character names and dialogue. Scholars have proposed five theories: the two plays share a now-lost common source; A Shrew is a bad quarto of The Shrew; A Shrew was an early draft by Shakespeare; A Shrew is an adaptation by another writer; or A Shrew is both a reported text and an early draft. No consensus has been reached.
The most famous adaptations include Cole Porter's musical Kiss Me, Kate; the 1967 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; and McLintock!, a 1963 American Western comedy starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. The 1999 high-school film 10 Things I Hate About You and the 2003 romantic comedy Deliver Us from Eva are also loosely based on the play.
Katherina's final speech in Act 5, Scene 2, lines 136 to 179, is the longest speech in the play and argues that wives should obey their husbands. Critics have divided over whether it is sincere submission, evidence of genuine love, deliberate irony by a woman who has outwitted Petruchio, or simply farcical material not meant to be taken seriously.