Louis Braille (January 4, 1809 – January 6, 1852)
Braille was a French educator and inventor of a system of reading and
writing for use by the blind or visually impaired. His system remains
virtually unchanged to this day, and is known worldwide simply as
braille.
Braille’s story starts when he was three years old. He was playing in
his father’s shop in Coupvray, France, and somehow managed to
injure his eye. Though he was offered the best medical attention
available at the time, it wasn’t enough—an infection soon developed
and spread to his other eye, rendering him blind in both eyes. While
a tragedy for him, had this accident not happened, we wouldn’t have
braille today.
