Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888 – 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer, who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918) against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities. Soon after the outbreak of war in 1914 Lawrence volunteered for the British Army and was stationed at the Arab Bureau (established in 1916) intelligence unit in Egypt. In 1916, he travelled to Mesopotamia and to Arabia on intelligence missions and quickly became involved with the Arab Revolt as a liaison to the Arab forces, along with other British officers, supporting the Arab Kingdom of Hejaz's independence war against its former overlord, the Ottoman Empire. After the First World War, he joined the British Foreign Office. In 1922, he retreated from public life and spent the years until 1935 serving as an enlisted man, mostly in the Royal Air Force (RAF), with a brief period in the Army. During this time, he published his best-known work Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), an autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab Revolt. He also translated books into English, and wrote The Mint, which detailed his time in the Royal Air Force working as an ordinary aircraftman.