The 2,000 Guineas Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run on the Rowley Mile at Newmarket over a distance of 1 mile (1,609 metres), and it is scheduled to take place each year in late April or early May.

It is one of Britain's five Classic races, and at present it is the first to be run in the year. It also serves as the opening leg of the Triple Crown, followed by the Derby and the St Leger, although the feat of winning all three has been rarely attempted in recent decades.

The 2,000 Guineas was first run on 18 April 1809, and it preceded the introduction of a version for fillies only, the 1,000 Guineas, by five years. Both races were established by the Jockey Club under the direction of Sir Charles Bunbury, who had earlier co-founded the Derby at Epsom. The races were named according to their original prize funds (a guinea amounted to 21 shillings, or £1.05).

By the mid-1860s, the 2,000 Guineas was regarded as one of Britain's most prestigious races for three-year-olds. The five leading events for this age group, characterised by increasing distances as the season progressed, began to be known as "Classics". The concept was later adopted in many other countries.

Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, (July 22, 1878 or 1879 – August 1942) was a Polish-Jewish educator, children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor (Mr. Doctor) or Stary Doktor (Old Doctor). After spending many years working as director of an orphanage in Warsaw, he refused freedom and stayed with his orphans when the institution was sent from the Ghetto to Treblinka extermination camp, during the Grossaktion Warsaw of 1942.

Korczak was born in Warsaw in 1878 or 1879 (sources vary) into the family of Józef Goldszmit, a respected lawyer from a family of proponents of the haskalah, and Cecylia nee Gębicka, daughter of a prominent Kalisz family. His father fell ill around 1890 and was admitted to mental hospital where he died six years later in April 1896. Spacious apartments – first along Miodowa street, then Świętojerska – had to be given up. Henryk worked as a tutor after school. In 1898 he used Janusz Korczak as a writing pseudonym in the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Literary Contest. The name originated from the book Janasz Korczak and the Pretty Swordsweeperlady (O Janaszu Korczaku i pięknej Miecznikównie) by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski. In the 1890s he studied in the Flying University. During the years 1898–1904 Korczak studied medicine at the University of Warsaw and also wrote for several Polish language newspapers. After graduation he became a pediatrician. During the Russo-Japanese War in 1905–1906 he served as a military doctor. Meanwhile his book Child of the Drawing Room (Dziecko salonu) gained him some literary recognition. After the war he continued his practice in Warsaw.