for 17 to 20th famous blind persons till Monday when I shift gears to another iimpairment!!! 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. He brought a soulful sound to country music, pop standards, and a rendition of America the Beautiful that Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes called the definitive version of the song, an American anthem. In 1965, Charles was arrested for possession of heroin, a drug to which he had been addicted for nearly 20 years. It was his third arrest for the offence, but he avoided jail time after kicking the habit in a clinic in Los Angeles. He spent a year on parole in 1966. Sidney Bradford - (May 30, 1906 - August 2, 1960) went blind at 10 months of age but regained sight on both eyes after a cornea transplant at the age of 52. He was the subject of many scientific studies of perception by neuropsychologist Richard Gregory. His operation was able to reveal idiosyncrasies of the human visual system. For example, not having grown up with vision, Bradford did not perceive the ambiguity of the Necker cube. Nor was he able to interpret the perspective of two-dimensional art. Nevertheless, he could accurately judge the distance to objects in the same room, having been familiar with these distances before regaining sight by virtue of having walked them. In a similar analogy between vision and sightless (touch-only) experience, Bradford was able to visually read the time on the ward clock just after his operation. Before surgery Bradford was a skilled machinist, but upon gaining vision, he became confused and unable to work. He committed suicide two years after his operation. Thomas Gore - (born Governor Thomas Pryor Gore on December 10, 1870 - March 16, 1949) Thomas was a Democratic politician. He became blind as a child through two separate accidents but did not give up his dream of becoming a senator. In 1907, he was elected to the Senate as one of the first two senators from the new state of Oklahoma. He was re-elected in 1908 and 1914 but defeated in 1920. He was known as a member of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, who worked with Republicans such as Robert La Follette. He was to a large extent no different from any other politician because of his blindness, but there were problems, as La Follette recounts an example in his memoirs when, during a filibuster, Gore did not realize that the senator who was to take over speaking for him had left the room, and the filibuster failed because he did not continue to speak. William Prescott - (February 20, 1726 - 1795) was an American colonel in the Revolutionary War who commanded the rebel forces in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Prescott became widely attributed for the famous quote, Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes, an important instruction to his soldiers in order to conserve ammunition. The former town of Prescott, Massachusetts, was named in his honor. The town was disincorporated in 1938 as part of the building of the Quabbin Reservoir, and the land now makes up Prescott Peninsula, which divides the main branches of the reservoir. Prescotts likeness was made into a statue for a memorial for the Battle of Bunker Hill. reverbnation/artist/fb_share/3626200
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 17:33:34 +0000
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