27 June, 1880: Birth of Helen Keller (d.1 June 1968) in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama, USA.

As a baby of nineteen months, Helen Keller was stricken with a severe illness which left her totally blind and deaf. Then Anne Mansfield Sullivan a English teacher came to teach her and there began that remarkable story of her development into a woman of great culture and spiritual insight.

Helen Keller devoted her life to helping blind and deaf-blind people. She appeared before US state and national legislatures and international forums, travelled around the world to lecture and to visit areas with a high incidence of blindness, and wrote numerous books and articles. She is known as a symbol of Hope for blind people across the world.

Miss Sullivan reading to Miss Keller, circa 1898 (http://www.afb.org)