On This Day 9/29

On This Day – 9/29

In 1547 Miguel De Cervantes was born in Madrid, Spain. He joined the Spanish Armada when he was 24 and fought in the sea battle of Lepanto where he was wounded (maimed left hand). After recuperating in Messina, Sicily, he continued with his military career. On his way back to Spain with his brother in 1575, the ship was captured by pirates and they were taken to Algiers. There Cervantes spent five years as a slave until his family could raise enough money (500 escudos) to pay his ransom.

Years later after a failed marriage and having a child out of wedlock, Cervantes was put in jail for fraud. It was while in jail that Cervantes wrote his masterpiece, Don Quixote, about a man who reads too many books and goes crazy and tries to restore heroism in the world. In one episode, he mistakes a group of windmills for monsters and attacks them.

One critic said, "Cervantes ranks with Shakespeare and Homer as a citizen of the world, a man of all times and countries, and Don Quixote, with Hamlet and the Iliad, belongs to universal literature.”

“Love not what you are, but what you may become." - Cervantes