Louis Braille was born on January 4th, 1809. He is best known for being the inventor of braille, a worldwide system used by blind and visually impaired people to read and write.
Louis became blind by accident from a awl (tool for making holes) accident when he was only 3 hears old. The wound got infected and Louis became blind in both eyes.
Unable to satisfy his quest for knowledge from lectures, the 12 year old, modified a top-secret information sharing method used on the battlefield, The method was reading raided digits with the finger in order to pass information in complete silence. Braille is read by passing the fingers over characters made up of an arrangement of one to six embossed points. Braille published his first book on the subject at the age of 15. In 1837, he added symbols for math and music.
Braille became a famous respected teacher at the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in France. Despite his fame and respect among his peers, Braille was never taught during his lifetime at The Institute. The air at the institute was contaminated and he died in Paris of tuberculosis on January 6th, 1852 at the age of 43. His system was finally officially recognized in France two years after his death, in 1854. His body was disinterred a century later in 1952 and honored with re-interment in the Panthéon in Paris. Braille is now in use for almost every language across the world.
