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Mar 4, 1266
Friar Bacon
Friar Roger Bacon outlined the scientific principles behind the use of corrective lenses in his Opus Majus. -
Apr 4, 1282
Nicholas Bullet
Nicholas Bullet, a priest, is known to have used spectacles when signing an agreement. This is one of the earliest known uses of spectacles. -
Nov 21, 1352
Early Depictions
The earliest depiction of spectacles in a painted work occurs in a series of frescos by Tommaso da Modena in the Chapter House of the Seminario attached to the Basilica San Nicolo in Treviso, north of Venice. -
Jan 20, 1401
Nicholas Cusa
Nicholas of Cusa was born. He was a German cardinal and scientist, and was the first to use concave lenses to correct myopia. -
Period: Apr 4, 1450 to
Dead period
Slavery boomed and so did industrialization so lital focus was put on visual technology -
Louis Braile
Louis Braille, the inventor of the Braille code, was born in Coupvray, France. -
Louis Braile meets soldier
Louis Braille meets a soldier who has shared his invention called "night writing" made of 12 dots which formed a code that soldiers could use to communicate at night. The code was too difficult for the soldiers to learn. Louis shortened the code to 6 dots and the Braille code was formed. -
Louis Braile publishes book
Louis Braille publishes the first book in his new Braille code, series of 6 raised or un-raised dots that are used by people that are blind or have low vision to read. -
William Perkins
William Perkins is awarded a patent for a "Writing-Machine for the Blind." The typewriter-like invention provided "an improved writing-machine for the blind, whereby writing in embossed characters by puncturing sheets of paper may be performed much more expeditiously than can be done with the usual hand-slate and stiletto, and whereby, also, the embossed characters will be formed in the order in which they are read and in accordance with the code of characters usually employed." This device prec -
Adolf Fick
Adolf Eugen Fick, a German physiologist, invents contact lenses. -
James Biggs
James Biggs of Bristol claims to have invented the white cane . According to Biggs, he became blind after a car accident and was becoming increasingly concerned with the amount of traffic outside of his home. He decided that painting his cane white would make him more visible to motorists, and thus, the "white cane" was born. He wrote to various organisations, Chief Constables and newspapers, explaining his idea. -
Guilly d'Herbemont
Guilly d'Herbemont, a member of French high society who devoted much of her time and fortune to the welfare of the blind, began the "white stick" movement, which was taken up by the press and promoted by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). -
RNIB
The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) begins selling white canes as a wayfinding aid for people who are blind. -
Charles Strunk
Charles Strunk files a patent for "a writing guide for the blind, so that persons whose sight is affected to an extent that they cannot clearly determine whether the lines they are writing are parallel, may write neat letters in a ready and simple manner. -
First mobile phone designed for blind people
The first mobile phone designed specifically for blind and partially sighted people, Owasys 22C, goes on show in the UK. -
Argus 11 'bionic eye' stystem
US researchers are given the go-ahead for human trials for the Argus II 'bionic eye' system. The system connected an eye-glass mounted camera to electrodes in the eye. "'What we are trying to do is take real-time images from a camera and convert them into tiny electrical pulses that would jump-start the otherwise blind eye and allow patients to see,' said Professor Mark Humayun, from the University of Southern California." -
Blind trial
A California federal district court ruled in National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corporation that websites of public business and services, such as target.com, must be made accessible to all users under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The landmark class action suit was brought on behalf of blind Internet users. Previously, since the ADA was written prior to wide use of the Internet, only 'brick and morter' (physical) places of business were required to be accessible. -
Federal Court rule
A U.S. Federal court rules that the country's paper money will need to be redesigned to have a tactile indicator. The current bills violate the Rehabilitation Act's guarantee of "meaningful access".