Women in History - 26 August

Mother Teresa, Indian missionary, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize among other honors.

Mother Teresa, known in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta (born Albanian 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary.

She was born in Skopje (now the capital of the Republic of Macedonia). After living in Macedonia for eighteen years she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.

In 1950 Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation which had over 4,500 sisters and was active in 133 countries in 2012.

Teresa received a number of honors, including the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. She was canonized (recognized by the church as a saint) on 4 September 2016, and the anniversary of her death (5 September) is her feast day.

A controversial figure during her life and after her death, Teresa was admired by many for her charitable work. She was praised and criticized for her opposition to abortion, and criticized for poor conditions in her houses for the dying. Her authorized biography was written by Navin Chawla and published in 1992, and she has been the subject of films and other books.