> International Nurses Day is celebrated on whose birthday each year?And the answer: Florence Nightingale. Photo credit: London Stereoscopic Company/Getty ImagesInternational Nurses Dayis celebrated around the world each year on the 12th of May. FlorenceNightingale is best known as the founder of modern nursing. Her experiences as anurse during the Crimean War were foundational in her views about sanitation,and in 1860, she established the Nightingale Training School for Nurses inLondon.Florence Nightingale was a pioneer of public health. Thanks to her, nursing isone of the most globally regulated and respected professions in the field ofmedicine. Her self-proclaimed calling to become a nurse helped elevate theprofession to that which we are accustomed today.Named for her birth place of Florence, Italy, Nightingale was born to a wealthyfamily who expected her to become a wife and homemaker. Nightingale had otherideas. At age 24, she defied her parents' expectation to marry a suitable matchand instead left England to study at a hospital in Germany. Upon her return toEngland, she took a job as a nurse in London, and was promoted to the head ofnursing after just one year. Nightingale focused on (and succeeded at) improving sanitary conditions so muchthat she garnered a reputation as a reformer and advocate for public health.When the British Press publicized the horrific conditions of their woundedsoldiers in Turkey, Nightingale received personal summons to help. She and herteam of nurses responded to the call, but upon their arrival to Turkey, theywere shocked. The situation was so bad that more soldiers were dying frominfection than the actual wounds sustained on the battlefield. Nightingale insisted that there be fresh air and water for all wounded soldiers,ensured that there would be good food to eat, and made sure that all thebandages, sheets and blankets were all adequately laundered each day. By thetime she had implemented her techniques, the death rate in military hospitalshad dropped by two-thirds. She returned to England with the nickname "The Angelof Crimea."Nightingale devoted the rest of her life to effecting change in medical care. Tolearn more about her legacy, check out this[https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-nightingale-home-and-training-school-for-nurses-st-thomass-hospital] article.