Hailed as a national hero in Albania, Gjergj Kastrioti-Skanderbeg (1403-1468) successfully ousted the Ottoman Turks from his native land for over two decades, halting Turkey's efforts to spread Islam through a predominately Roman Catholic western Europe.

Kidnapped by the Ottoman Turks at a young age, Albanian freedom fighter Gjergj Kastrioti-Skanderbeg was raised under Islam and trained as a general within the ranks of the Turkish military before fleeing his captors and reconverting to Christianity in 1443. As commander of Albania's warlords, he sparked a national revolt in 1444 and held off numerous efforts by the Ottomans to take back Albania and bring that country once again under Muslim rule. Following Kastrioti-Skanderbeg's death in 1468 his Albanian forces could no longer repulse the Turks; twelve years later Albania fell once more to Turkish forces and remained part of the Ottoman Empire for many centuries, until its eventual liberation in 1912.

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