Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy on 12 May 1820. Her father was a wealthy landowner. She was brought up in Derbyshire (where she spent her summers) and Hampshire ( where she spent her winters).
Florence was named after the place of her birth
Florence Nightingale is famous for her nursing work during the Crimean War (1854 - 56). She changed the face of nursing from a mostly untrained profession to a highly skilled and well-respected medical profession with very important responsibilities.
As Florence grew up she developed an interest in helping others. She cared for sick pets and servants whenever she had the chance.

Florence Nightingale felt called by God to become a nurse. 
At seventeen years of age, she believed she was called into service by God "to do something toward lifting the load of suffering from the helpless and miserable.”
At first her parents refused to allow her to become a nurse because, at that time, it was not thought to be a suitable profession for a well educated woman. But Florence did not give up. Eventually in 1851 her father gave his permission and Florence went to Germany to train as a nurse.
In 1853 was running a hospital in London.
In 1854 Florence Nightingale was asked to go to Turkey to manage the nursing of British soldiers wounded in the Crimean War (1854 - 56). She traveled to Scutari (the location where the wounded and ill soldiers of the Crimean War were taken) to help the wounded soldiers.
She found the hospital conditions to be in a very poor state. Many of the wounded were unwashed and were sleeping in overcrowded, dirty rooms without blankets or decent food. In these conditions diseases such as typhus, cholera and dysentery spread quickly. As a result, the death rate amongst wounded soldiers was very high. Most soldiers died from infections and disease. (Only one in six died from their war wounds; the other five in six died from infections and disease.)

Florence and her nurses changed these conditions. They set up a kitchen, fed the wounded from their own supplies, dug latrines for sanitation, and asked for help from the wives of the wounded. They were then able to properly care for the ill and wounded and the death rate among the soldiers dropped.