Florence Nightingale

Born in 1820 in Florence, Italy, to a wealthy aristocratic family, Florence Nightingale seemed an unlikely candidate for a social reformer and nursing advocate. She was a sickly child who showed an insatiable intellectual curiosity at an early age and a restless spirit that was ill suited to the society life for which she was reared. Uncharacteristically for the times, she received a formal education from her father and chose an occupation common for women of the lower classes.