Tom Marvolo Riddle (31 December, 1926 – 2 May, 1998), later (and better) known as Lord Voldemort, was a half-blood wizard considered to have been the most powerful and dangerous dark wizard of all time. The only child and son of wealthy Muggle gentleman Tom and Merope Riddle (née Gaunt) via the coercive use of a Love Potion, Riddle was raised in the Muggle-run Wool's Orphanage after his father abandoned his new family on the streets of London when the potion's influence was lifted, and his mother died moments after giving birth to and naming him after his father and maternal grandfather, Marvolo Gaunt.
Voldemort was ripped from his body in 1981, after attempting to kill Harry Potter, and though unable to die, was not able to regain a permanent and physical body until 1995, thus spending the intervening 14 years "a shell, less than the meanest ghost", but alive. He was finally killed by his own backfiring curse after Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, following Dumbledore's death, succeeded in destroying all of his Horcruxes.