Many years ago, in a small French village,there lived a three year old boy named Louis Braille. One day, while playing in his father's workshop, Louis had an accident when he tripped while carrying an awl that his father often used while making shoes. The tool went into his eye immediately taking his site. A resulting infection soon caused him to lose sight in the other eye as well.

In 1819, when he was ten years old, Louis' parents sent him to a school for the blind to learn to read. At that time, the blind could only read huge letters raised from the pages. They had to be large enough to that the shape of each letter could be clearly identified. Needless to say, there were not many books that were made for the blind to read, and those that did exist were very large. Louis was convinced that there had to be a better way.

A couple of years later, Louis met a French artillery offices by the name of Charles Barbier. Charles showed Louis a techinque of pushing a pencil into a paper from behind to make dots emerging from the paper. Charles explained that this method was often used to provide instructions for the troops to be used at night. Using combinations of 12 dots, however, it was impossible for the troops to learn so it was abandoned. Louis, however, saw the potential and used this basic technique to create an alphabet and number system that could be used by the blind to learn and read. This was the beginning of what has been called the Braille Alphabet and the system of reading is still in use today.

Because of its' simplicity, the blind were even able to write in Braille using a simple stylus. This greatly enhanced their ability to communicate and many books were soon available in this format.

You can find many examples of braille in common use today. It appears on bank machine keypads, keyboards and even on some official documents, as well as in a large variety of books and publications for the blind. Thanks to Louis, many blind people today can still enjoy the pleasures of reading.