Portrait of Mother Teresa

Birthday profile

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa, Albanian-Indian nun, missionary, Catholic saint, and Nobel Prize laureate (died 1997)

Born
August 26, 1910
Died
September 5, 1997
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1910

About Mother Teresa

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Albanian: [aˈɲɛzə ˈɡɔndʒɛ bɔjaˈdʒi.u]; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), better known as Mother Teresa or Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity and a Catholic saint. Born in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire, she was raised in a devoutly Catholic family. At the age of 18, she moved to Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto and later to India, where she lived most of her life and carried out her missionary work. On 4 September 2016, she was canonised by the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. The anniversary of her death, 5 September, is now observed as her feast day. In 1950, Mother Teresa established the Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation that was initially dedicated to serving "the poorest of the poor" in the slums of Calcutta. Over the decades, the congregation grew to operate in over 133 countries, as of 2012, with more than 4,500 nuns managing homes for those dying from HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis, as well as running soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, orphanages, and schools. Members of the order take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and also profess a fourth vow: to give "wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor." Mother Teresa received several honours, including the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. However, she also drew criticism for the poor conditions and lack of medical care or pain relief in her houses for the dying. Her life and work have inspired books, documentaries, and films. Her authorized biography, written by Navin Chawla, was published in 1992, and on 6 September 2017, she was named a co-patron of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta alongside St Francis Xavier. Mother Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulty. In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, choosing a white sari with two blue borders as the order's habit. She founded a school in Motijhil, Calcutta, before she began tending to the poor and hungry.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Mother Teresa timeline

  1. In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, choosing a white sari with two blue borders as the order's habit.
  2. On 4 September 2016, she was canonised by the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

The world when Mother Teresa was born

Mother Teresa was born in 1910. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1910

  • Best-selling book"The Rosary" – Florence L. Barclay

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJack Johnson defends heavyweight title, sparking nationwide debate
  • Top headlineBoy Scouts of America founded
  • Technology milestoneFirst neon lighting demonstrated in Paris
  • World population~1.7B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWilliam Howard Taft
  • U.S. population92.2M

1910 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Mother Teresa's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19102026
Average home$3,395$435,000
Average income$574$67,500
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population92.2M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.