As a young girl, Malala Yousafzai defied the 
Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be 
allowed to receive an education. She was shot 
in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012, but 
survived.
Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, in 
Mingora, Pakistan. As a child, she became an 
advocate for girls' education, which resulted in 
the Taliban issuing a death threat against her.
Yousafzai attended a school that her father, 
Ziauddin Yousafzai, had founded. After the 
Taliban began attacking girls' schools in Swat, 
Malala gave a speech in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 
September 2008.
When she was 14, Malala and her family 
learned that the Taliban had issued a death 
threat against her. 
Though Malala was frightened for the safety of 
her father—an anti-Taliban activist—she and her 
family initially felt that the fundamentalist group 
would not actually harm a child.
On October 9, 2012, on her way home from 
school, a man boarded the bus Malala was 
riding in and demanded to know which girl was 
Malala. When her friends looked toward Malala, 
her location was given away.
The gunman fired at her, hitting Malala in the left 
side of her head; the bullet then traveled down 
her neck. Two other girls were also injured in the 
attack.
The shooting left Malala in critical condition, so 
she was flown to a military hospital in Peshawar. 
A portion of her skull was removed to treat her 
swelling brain. To receive further care, she was 
transferred to Birmingham, England.
Once she was in the United Kingdom, Yousafzai 
was taken out of a medically induced coma. 
Though she would require multiple surgeries—
including repair of a facial nerve to fix the 
paralyzed left side of her face—she had suffered 
no major brain damage.
In March 2013, she was able to begin attending 
school in Birmingham.
In October 2014, Yousafzai received the Nobel 
Peace Prize, along with Indian children's rights 
activist Kailash Satyarthi. At age 17, she 
became the youngest person to receive the 
Nobel Peace Prize.
For her 18th birthday on July 12, 2015, also 
called Malala Day, the young activist continued 
to take action to make global education a 
worldwide priority. 
