At age 28, the future Spanish novelist is captured by pirates off the coast of Spain when the ship he was aboard, the Sol, is taken-over by Algerian pirates.
Cervantes will spend the next five years as a quasi–slave, imprisoned by the pirate group in Algiers. He will ultimately be ransomed by his parents back in Madrid in conjunction with the Trinitarians, a Catholic order.
The first part of his most famous literary work, Don Quixote, will incorporate, as well, some vignettes based on this captivity. His classic will appear in 1605 (~30 years later).