A blind 15-year-old invented the reading system used by blind people worldwide

Louis Braille lost his sight at age three after a childhood accident. At 15, he adapted a French army officer's 12-dot 'night writing' code, used for reading messages in the dark, into a simpler 6-dot system that could be read fast by touch. He published it in 1829, and it remains, largely unchanged, the standard tactile writing system for blind readers two centuries later.

— Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles, Louis Braille — Braille system published 1829