Florence Nightingale opens the first school for nurses at the St. Thomas hospital in London

Florence Nightingale was a revered English nurse, writer and statistician. Nightingale chose to become a nurse over the popular role of wife and mother. Though her family was against it, they could not change her mind. She believed that she had been called by God to pursue a nursing career. Nightingale gained popularity during the Crimean war where she cared for wounded soldiers. In 1860 she established a nursing school at St Thomas Hospital in London. It was the first professional nursing school in the world. The nursing school is now part of King’s College London where nursing graduates take the Nightingale pledge, so named in her honour.