Two hundred years ago today...
Nearly 200 years after the birth of Louis Braille, the alphabet of raised dots he created to overcome his lack of sight continues to touch the lives of blind people everywhere. Braille was born on January 4, 1809, near Paris.
The son of a saddler, he injured his eye with an awl when he was three years old. The resulting infection spread to both eyes and he was soon blind. Despite his blindness, he continued to attend a regular village school until the age of 10, when he enrolled at the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris. There, while his fellow students slept, he began punching dots into soft wood to create an alphabet.
