Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, in Mingora, Pakistan, located in the country's Swat Valley. For the first few years of her life, her hometown remained a popular tourist spot that was known for its summer festivals. However, the area began to change when the Taliban tried to take control.

In early 2009, when she was 11-12, she wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC Urdu detailing her life during the Pakistani Taliban occupation.

Malala attended a school that her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, had founded and she was a staunch advocate for the power of education, women's education rights and every human right.

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 at Malala, the gunman fired at her, hitting Malala on the left side of her head; the bullet then traveled down her neck.