Five Famous People Born in 1809

Much excitement was made about Lincoln and Darwin birthdates. Presented here are other famous individuals who do not share the exact date of birth, but they were born in 1809, 200 years ago. They made great contributions.

Without Louis Braille's reading system for the blind, many people may not be able to read today. Helen Keller learned Braille and used it to read not only English but also French, German, Greek, and Latin. According to the American Foundation for the Blind, born on January 4, 1809, Louis Braille was blind by age 3 from an accident. He used six dots and six bumps in different patterns to create a code at age 12. A former soldier named Charles Barbier the idea for the code when he visited the school Louis attended. Louis got a scholarship to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris, when he was 10. Barbier's code let soldiers share top-secret information on the battlefield without even having to speak in 1821. By the time Braille was 15, he published the first-ever Braille book in 1829. At the Royal Institution, where Louis taught after he graduated, Braille wasn't taught until after his death. Braille began to spread worldwide in 1868, when a group of British men, now known as the Royal National Institute for the Blind, took up the cause. The American Foundation for the Blind celebrated the 200th anniversary of Louis Braille's birthday on January 4, 1809, this year.

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe was a poet, author and literary critic. According to Poe's website, he was raised by his godfather, John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant, after the death of both his parents. Poe went to school in England, but dropped out University of Virginia (UVA, and later West Point after he won an appointment. During his adulthood, Poe spent time in Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore, but it was Richmond, Virginia that Poe considered home; the place where he grew up, married and first gained a national literary reputation. According to a press release, in honor of Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday, the Library of Virginia, in partnership with Richmond, VA's Poe Museum, is preparing an exhibition on Poe's life and works. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be the Poe Family Bible, a rarely-seen artifact in the Poe Museum's collections. The exhibition will open July 18, 2009.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born on August 29, 1809 in Cambridge, MA. Oliver Wendell Holmes studied at Phillips Academy Andover, and then attended the Harvard University. Trained as a medical doctor, Holmes is better known as an author and poet. An article by Oliver Wendell Holmes was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery in 1843. According to Horace E. Scudder, he accepted the professorship of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth College in 1839, for a few months, not abandoning the practice of medicine in Boston. He was made Parkman Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical School of Harvard College, a position which he retained until the close of 1882. He made his Farewell Address to the Medical School, delivered November 28, 1882. The volume of Medical Essays in his collected works contain papers and dialogues which belong to the whole period of his professorship, but the printed matter bears a very small proportion to the whole volume of his professional writing and speaking.

Famous for the Wedding March from Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Felix Mendelssohn (Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy) was born on February 03, 1809 in Hamburg, Germany. Many people may not know he wrote it, but the song is known the world over. He was regarded by some critics as the 19th century equivalent of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, according to his biography.

The American orator and politician Robert Charles Winthrop was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 12th of May 1809. He graduated at Harvard in 1828, studied law with Daniel Webster and in 1831 was admitted to the bar. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1834-1840. According to the Congressional Biography from 1837-1840 he was speaker, and in 1840 was elected to the national House of Representatives as a Whig. He served as Representative and Senator from Massachusetts and Speaker of the U.S. House. He authored Addresses and Speeches (1852-86), Life and Letters of John Winthrop (1864-7, 2 vols.), and Washington, Bowdoin and Franklin (1876).

Resources:

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=W000646

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller

http://www.afb.org/LouisBrailleMuseum/

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=86

http://www.felixmendelssohn.com/

http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/owh/owhhes.html

http://www.poe200th.com/