Happy Birthday, Louis Braille!

On today's date, in 1809, Louis Braille was born. Braille invented a system for reading and writing used by blind and visually impaired people around the world. By passing one's fingers over embossed characters made up of an arrangement of one to six points, one is able to read.

Louis Braille was born in Coupvray, France. A childhood accident left him completely blind by the age of four. While attending the Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles (Royal Institution for Blind Youths) in Paris, a school to which Braille earned a scholarship, Braille learned a 12-dot system developed by Charles Barbier, a former soldier who visited the school. Braille worked to simplify the system, and completed his 6-dot system before his 15th birthday.

Today, braille has been adapted to almost every major national language and is the primary system of written communication for visually impaired persons around the world.

Source: Wikipedia

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