Louis Braille was born in Coupvray, France--a small town near Paris--on January 4, 1809 and when he was three he went blind, one eye having been pierced by an awl and the other became infected a few days later. When he was older, he was allowed to sit in on classes at the local school to learn what he could by listening. When he was ten he earned a scholarship to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris. At the school, the children were taught to read by feeling raised letters but they couldn't write because the printing was made with wire letters pressed onto paper. He also started learning the piano and organ. In 1821 a French army captain named Charles Barbier de la Serre visited the school and brought with him a system of writing he'd invented called night writing consisting of combinations of twelve raised dots for soldiers to use to communicate silently at night. Louis Braille realised that, if simplified, this could be useful for blind people. After several months of working on it he finally came up with a six-dotted system which he then extended to include mathematics and music. The first book in Braille was published in 1827.
Louis Braille died on January 6, 1852 at the age of 43 and in 1952, Braille's body was moved to Paris and buried in the Pantheon.
Sources:
http://www.rnib.org.uk/wesupply/fctsheet/braille.htm
http://www.his.com/~pshapiro/braille.html