Birth of Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was born on 12 May 1820 in Florence. An English social reformer and statistician, Nightingale was named after the Italian city of her birth and defied family expectations to become a nurse. In 1854 she led a team of nurses to British military hospitals at Scutari during the Crimean War, where she improved sanitation and care, and her night rounds with a lamp earned her the nickname the Lady with the Lamp. She later used statistical diagrams to show that most soldiers died of disease and poor conditions rather than wounds, influencing army reform. In 1860 she founded a nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London, laying the foundations of modern professional nursing, and she wrote the influential Notes on Nursing.

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