Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is born this day
near Madrid. Cervantes led an adventurous life and achieved much
popular success, but he nevertheless struggled financially
throughout his life. Little is know about his childhood, except
that he was a favorite student of Madrid humanist Juan Lopez,
and that his father was an apothecary. In 1569, Cervantes was
living in Rome and working for a future cardinal. Shortly
thereafter, he enlisted in the Spanish fleet to fight against
the Turks. At the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, he took three
bullets and suffered permanent damage to his left hand. Later,
he was stationed at Palermo and Naples. On the way home to
Madrid in 1575, he and his brother Roderigo were captured by
Barbary pirates and held captive in Algiers. Cervantes was
ransomed after five years of captivity and returned to Madrid,
where he began writing. Although his records indicate he wrote
20 to 30 plays, only two survive. In 1585, he published a
romance. During this time, he married a woman