Florence Nightingale 206th Birthday

Florence Nightingale is known as the founder of modern nursing.

She was born May 12, 1820 in Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany. She died August 13, 1910 at Mayfair, London, England. She was 96 years old. She is interred at St Margaret's Church, East Wellow, Hampshire.

Her forte was Hospital hygiene, Sanitation, and statistics. She is recognized for transforming sanitary practices in military hospitals during the Crimean War and for her pioneering work in statistics.

She was called "The Lady with the Lamp" and significantly reduced mortality rates by focusing on hygiene, nutrition, and patient care, and later established the first professional nursing school.

During the Crimean War in the 1850s, she and her volunteer nurses drastically reduced the death rate at a British base hospital by improving sanitation and hygiene.

She established the Nightingale Training School for Nurses in 1860, establishing nursing as a respectable profession for women.

Nightingale was a pioneer in data visualization, creating the "polar area diagram" aka or "Nightingale rose diagram" to illustrate causes of mortality in hospitals.

She authored "Notes on Nursing: What it is, and What it is Not" in 1859 which served as a cornerstone text for the profession.

She influenced sanitation reforms and helped establish the principles of the British Red Cross, the Royal Red Cross in 1883, The Lady of Grace of the Order of St John in 1904, as well as the Order of Merit in 1907.