Iran Book News Agency (IBNA) - The world on Braille’s fingertips

The book “Louis Braille” from the series “Famous Men of Science” of Mohajer Publications is translated by Ahmad Ghandehari for teens.

IBNA Teen: The blind know Louis Braille well. He invented a special language system for the blind. This blind inventor was born January 4, 1809 in a French village called Coupvary. Louis’s father was one of the best harness makers of the area, but upon the birth of his son he stated that he doesn’t wish his son to become a harness maker.

He wanted his son to go to school and study. Louis revealed to be very quick and witty from the beginning, promising to satisfy his father’s hopes. But his wit and curiosity soon caused an incident for the son and while he was playing with his father’s tools, he hurt his eye and went blind when he was 3.
Mohajer Publications has published ‘Louis Braille’ from the series “Famous Men of Science” with price of 1500 Tomans.

Here is a chronology of this inventor:

1809 Louis Braille was born in a French village named Coupvery.
1812 Little Louis went blind at age 3.
1815 A young priest came to Coupvery and accepted educating the blind son.
1819 The Paris Young Blind Royal Institute offered a scholarship to Louis Braille.
1821 Charles Barbier de la Serr, a retired army officer came to the institute and introduced his new invention called Sonography. He used a metal shaft to punch paper and inscribe words on it.
1822 Louis Braille spent much of his time on completing Barbier’s method and managed to create codes that stood for letters.
1824 Dr Picknier applied Louis’s invented method of reading and writing in the institute.
1826 the blind genius was in charge of teaching freshmen and supervising courses at the institute.
1828 The 19-year-old Braille became assistant teacher.
1829 the youth published a book titled method of writing words and musical notes down and reading by the blind
1834 The young inventor participated in a big festival held at Grand Square of Paris for discoverers and inventors and there he exhibited his achievement.
1835 Louis Braille was infected with Tuberculosis.
1836 he added the letter W to his collection of letters so that English speakers can also use this method. (French language lacks W).
1837 Louis’s first book titled “A Brief History of France, century by century” was completed with dot-letters.
1839 Braille transformed dots to bossed letters to be felt by the blind.
1840 Dr Picknier resigned from directorship and Dufeau, his substitute, banned the Braille method.
1844 the assistant of the Blind Institute introduces Louis Braille as the inventor of dot-letter method at the inauguration ceremony of the new building.
1851 The great inventor died of respiratory disease.

Braille’s method was officially acknowledged after two years from his death.