Eye Education Series-Conquerors: Dr.Murali Mohan Gurram Blindness dint stop these people in conquering their worlds.

Blindness was not a hindrance to some people, who stood tall in their fields, despite their blindness. Here are some of such legends, who should be taken as inspiration , to tackle the challenges we face.

Helen Keller - (1880 - 1968) - Helen Adams Keller was an American author, activist and lecturer. She was the first deaf/blind person to graduate from college. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities amid numerous other causes.

Stevie Wonder is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. Blind from infancy, Wonder signed with Motown Records as a pre-adolescent at age twelve, and continues to perform and record for the label to this day. He lost sight due to Retinopathy of prematurity.

Compilation by Dr. Murali Mohan Gurram

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Eye Education Series-Conquerors: Dr.Murali Mohan Gurram Franklin Delano Roosevelt - (January 30, 1882 - April 12, 1945) Franklin was the 32nd President of the United States of America and played a big role during World War II. He was also the only President to ever get elected 4 years in a row.

Louis Braille - (January 4, 1809 - January 6, 1852) Louis Braille became blind after he accidentally stabbed himself in the eye with his father's awl. He later became an inventor and designed braille writing, which enables blind people to read through feeling a series of organized bumps representing letters. This concept was beneficial to all blind people from around the world and is commonly used even today. If it were not for Louis Braille's blindness he may not have invented this method of reading and no other blind person could have enjoyed a story or been able to comprehend important paperwork.

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Eye Education Series-Conquerors: Dr.Murali Mohan Gurram Galileo Galilei - (15 February 1564 - 8 January 1642) Galileo Galilei was a Tuscan (Italian) astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher being greatly responsible for the scientific revolution His sight started to deteriorate at the age of 68 years old and eventually leaded to complete blindness.

John Milton - (December 9, 1608 - November 8, 1674)John Milton was a civil servant, English poet and prose polemicist. Milton was well known through his epic poem Paradise Lost and also for his radical views on republican religion. John Milton became blind at the age of 43 in 1651.

Compilation by Dr. Murali Mohan Gurram

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Eye Education Series-Conquerors: Dr.Murali Mohan Gurram Claude Monet - (November 14, 1840 - December 5, 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise. He started to go blind by 1907. He wouldn't stop painting until he was nearly blind.

Dr. Jacob Bolotin - (1888-1924) - The first congenitally blind man to receive a medical license. Dr. Bolotin lived and practiced in Chicago on diseases of the heart and lungs.

Compilation by Dr. Murali Mohan Gurram

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Eye Education Series-Conquerors: Dr.Murali Mohan Gurram Marla Runyan - (born January 4, 1969) Marla Runyan is a marathon runner who is legally blind. She is a three-time national champion in the women's 5.000 metres.

Ray Charles - (September 23, 1930 - June 10, 2004) known by his stage name Ray Charles, was an American pianist and musician who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues.

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Eye Education Series-Conquerors: Dr.Murali Mohan Gurram Esref Armagan - (born 1953) Esref is a blind painter of Turkish origin. He has demonstrated for the first time that a blind person can develop on his or her own pictorial skills the equal of most depiction by the sighted.

Erik Weihenmayer - born September 23, 1968 - is the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on May 25, 2001. Erik was born with a disease called retinoschisis and became totally blind by the age of 13.

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Eye Education Series-Conquerors: Dr.Murali Mohan Gurram There are some Indians too who conquered the peoples hearts despite the inability to see:

Surdas (Sant Kavi Surdas) was a 15th century blind saint, poet and musician, known for his devotional songs dedicated to Lord Krishna. Surdas is said to have written and composed a hundred thousand songs in his magnum opus the 'Sur Sagar' (Ocean of Melody), out of which only about 8,000 are extant.

Manipal Arunakumari: Aruna is considered as The World's First Blind High Grade Veena Artist of Excellence. Born on 26-02-1967. At the age of 7, she lost her eye sight due to both eyes retinal detachment.

Compilation by Dr. Murali Mohan Gurram

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Eye Education Series-Conquerors: Dr.Murali Mohan Gurram Ravindra Jain: I dont think there is any music lover who has not liked the song Gori tera gaav bada pyara from movie Chitchor. It was composed by Ravindra Jain who was born blind. He is one of the most notable of the Hindi music directors who started his career in the early 1970s, composing for many hit films. Along with composing music, he also wrote the lyrics for many of his famous songs.

(Thanks for google images for providing me the sources of images)

Compilation by Dr. Murali Mohan Gurram

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