On February 26, 1928, Israel’s 11th prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was born to Russian immigrants in Kfar-Malal, a town located in pre-State Israel. Before Israeli statehood, his name was Ariel Scheinerman, but he later changed it to sound more Hebraic in the early years of the nation’s establishment.Sharon joined the Haganah, an underground Zionist militia movement, when he was 14 years old. He eventually became a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces in 1947 and, soon after, transitioned to being a junior officer in the Battles of Latrun. While studying Middle Eastern history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, his army career transitioned into becoming an intelligence officer. Throughout the 1990s, Sharon served in the Knesset on the Foreign Affairs, where he established a free trade agreement with the United States, and Defense Committee, which later transitioned again to a ministerial appointment with the National Infrastructure. By 1998, he had been elected Foreign Minister and oversaw permanent status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. In 1999, the Likud political party elected Sharon to be chairman after Benjamin Netanyahu resigned.In the fall of 2000, Sharon made his famous visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where he emphasized its importance to Judaism as a sovereign part of Israel. Both Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Authority, and the Palestinians saw this as a threat, and it was a major cause of what started their series of heinous, violent terrorist attacks against the Israelis in the Second Intifada.Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister shortly after his Temple Mount visit on February 6, 2001. As Prime Minister, he also oversaw the withdrawal of Israelis from the Gaza Strip, which had long been disputed territory—territory that he himself had fought for. His political party, the Likud, did not approve of the disengagement of Gaza, so he formed the more moderate Kadima.In late 2005, Ariel Sharon’s weakening health impaired his work. In January 2006, he was hospitalized after suffering from a couple of minor strokes and a brain hemorrhage. He then transferred the power of his office as Prime Minister to Ehud Olmert that same month. This unfortunate, rapid toll on Ariel Sharon’s health ended his lifelong career in public service.