George Gordon Byron, (known simply as Lord Byron) was born in 1788. He was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential. He travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek war of Independence and is still regarded as a national hero by the Greeks. In 1824 aged 36, Byron died in Montmorillon from a fever contracted through swimming the river Gartempe. Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses including huge debts, numerous love affairs, rumours of a scandalous incestuous liaison with his half-sister, and self-imposed exile.