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Forty years ago today, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, after dedicating her life to helping others.

She looked after those in sickness and poverty in the Indian city of Kolkata (Calcutta).

In September 2016, it was announced that the Roman Catholic nun was being made a saint.

Read on to find out more about her.

Mother Teresa was born on 26 August 1910 in Skopje, North Macedonia - a country to the east of Albania and north of Greece - although she was called Gonxha Agnes at the time.

It is believed that she decided she wanted to become a missionary in India as early as the age of 12.

At the age of 18 - in September 1928 - she started her mission when she left her home to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ireland. It is here that she received the name Sister Mary Teresa after St Thérèse of Lisieux.

In December, she left Ireland to travel to India, arriving in Kolkata on 6 January 1929 to teach in a girls' school.

From 1937, she became known as Mother Teresa, but it was a train ride on 10 September 1946 which would change her life forever.

It is on this journey that Mother Teresa said she received her "inspiration" to carry out what she described as the work of God, devoting herself to helping people who lived in the slums of Kolkata.

On 17 August 1948, she stepped out for the first time in her white and blue sari, for which she is now so well known.

In 1950, she founded an organisation called the Missionaries of Charity, which was a sisterhood dedicated to helping the poor.

It expanded internationally and to this day has around 4,500 nuns and 400 brothers across 87 countries, all of whom look after the poor and the sick in the slums of around 160 cities across the world.

Her charitable efforts have been widely celebrated and recognised all over the planet. She was invited to speak at both the United Nations General Assembly and the Vatican.

Mother Teresa has won a string of awards for her charity work - the most notable being the Nobel Peace Prize, which she was given in 1979.

Upon receiving the prize, she said she was "happy to receive it in the name of the hungry, the naked and the homeless."

She asked for a big dinner organised to mark her winning the award to be cancelled, and for all of the money to be given to the poor people of Kolkata instead.

Mother Teresa died on 5 September 1997 at the age of 87, and was given a state funeral in India.

While she had some controversial opinions which some people disagreed with, Mother Teresa is remembered as an incredibly selfless person who wanted to help those less fortunate than herself.

Some years later, in 2016, Pope Francis recognised Mother Teresa as a saint.