Florence Nightingale was born in Florence in Italy on May 12, 1820. Her parents named her after the name of the city where she was born. Her sole ambition in life was to be a nurse and so she gave up all thoughts of marriage and personal happiness. She spent years visiting hospital after hospital. Day and night she visited every bed in the hospital to see that no patient was neglected and that all were as comfortable as possible. However hard she might have worked all day, every night she would take her lamp and move from bed to bed. "The lady with the lamp," the soldiers called her and that is the name by which the world has remembered her ever since.