They won over their fate- Its astonishing!!

[grace55]

Helen Keller: The Light in the Darkness
To this day, Helen Keller remains an inspiration and a heroine to people throughout the world.
The story of Helen Keller has been told again and again, and yet it still touches people. Her courageous life and her triumphs over adversity inspire, amaze, and captivate audiences new and old.

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880, as a healthy baby. Before her illness, she could walk, say a few words, and had a friendly, spirited personality. At the age of 19 months, she caught a fever and as a result of it lost her sight and hearing.To compensate, Helen began to rely on her other senses, touching and smelling everything. She held the hands (touch) of other people to learn what they were doing and copied their movements when she could.
Helen was able to recognize her parents and their friends by feeling their faces and clothes. She could tell where she was outside by the fragrance of plants (smell).

Despite her missing senses, Helen was able to communicate with her family using signs she had invented to let them know what she wanted. For example, she would pretend to cut bread when she wanted to eat bread. However, the communication was one-sided. She wanted to communicate in the same way her family did but was unable to talk. Helen became extremely frustrated and angry, to the point that her family was unable to control her.
When Helen was seven years old, her family hired a private teacher named Anne Sullivan. Miss Sullivan was sight-impaired herself. She soon realized the cause of Helen's tantrums was frustration. She was able to gain control of Helen's discipline and began to teach Helen the manual alphabet (a sign language in which each letter is signed onto the hand of the deaf-blind person so that he or she can feel it).

In a famous historical moment, Miss Sullivan led Helen to the water-pump, pumped water onto her hand, and simultaneously spelled out the individual letters, W-A-T-E-R. After many repetitions of the word, Helen realized that the individual signs represented the letters that made up a word that was the name for the thing water, and that other things must also have a name.Miss Sullivan taught Helen at home for a few years, teaching her to read and write in Braille, and to read people's lips by pressing her fingertips against them (a method called Tadoma, an extremely difficult skill that very few people master).

In 1888, when Helen was ready for formal schooling, Miss Sullivan went with her to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston and in 1894 they moved to the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York. Miss Sullivan attended classes with Helen, interpreting the lessons for her by tapping the teachers' words into her hand, and transcribing books into Braille.

Helen did very well in school and went on to graduate with honors from Radcliffe College in 1904. While in college she wrote The Story of My Life. After graduation, Helen Keller lectured throughout the country and traveled abroad, supporting causes and fighting for rights.
Helen Keller died shortly before her 88th birthday, on June 1, 1968.

[grace55]

Louis Braille was born January 4, 1809, in Coupvray, France. An injury to his eye at age three resulted in total loss of vision. When he was ten, he entered the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris, the world’s first school for blind children. There he would live, study, and later teach.
When Louis was fifteen, he developed an ingenious system of reading and writing by means of raised dots. Two years later he adapted his method to musical notation.
Mr. Braille accepted a full-time teaching position at the Institute when he was nineteen. He was a kind, compassionate teacher and an accomplished musician. He gave his life in selfless service to his pupils, to his friends, and to the perfection of his raised dot method, which is known today as Braille.
Louis Braille died at age forty-three, confident that his mission on earth was completed.

[grace55]

Beethoven was baptised in Bonn, Germany on December 17th, 1770, and it is accepted that his birthday is probably this date also. Beethoven went to the Neugasse elementary school, then the Bonn cathedral school, and later to a school in the Bongasse. His father Johann was a singer (Court Tenor) in the electoral chapel at Bonn, and his grandfather was kapellmeister at the same chapel. When only four years old, Beethoven showed decided love for music, and his father began to instruct him on the piano and violin. In 1779 the boy was placed under the instruction of Tobias Pfeiffer. Beethoven's unusual talent was so evident that the Elector assumed the expense of his further musical training. Thus the court organist Van den Eeden became Ludwig's teacher on both organ and piano. After this teacher's death, in 1781, the new court organist, C.G. Neefe, continued to teach Beethoven and introduced him to J.S. Bach's music.
In 1787 Beethoven visited Vienna, at a time when Gluck, Haydn, and Mozart were living there. On that occasion the boy's masterly improvisation elicited those prophetic words from Mozart: "Keep your eyes on him; some day he will make a stir in the world."

Beethoven returned to Vienna in 1792. In his quality of court organist of the Elector of Cologne, an uncle of the reigning Emperor of Austria, Leopold II, and as the prot‚g‚ of Count Waldstein, Beethoven was immediately admitted to the most exclusive circles. Without delay he began his lessons with Haydn, but before long the critical pupil discovered that the famous composer was a poor teacher. As arrangements had been made by the Elector for Beethoven to study with Haydn personally, it was impossible to change teachers without giving offense. Therefore, Beethoven visited Haydn regularly, but secretly arranged with Johann Schenk for a thorough course in counterpoint. When in 1793 Haydn undertook his second journey to England, he sent his pupil to the famous theorist Albrechtsberger, with whom Beethoven studied for a year.
Then Beethoven began his public career. In March he appeared in one of Haydn's concerts with his own concerto for piano and orchestra in C, in the double role of virtuoso and composer, and in October his opus 1, three trios for piano, violin, and cello, appeared in print. With his friend and patron, Count Lichnowsky, Beethoven visited Prage in 1796 and played in the houses of the nobility. The flattering reception accorded to him in these circles induced him to visit also Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin. In the Prussian capital he played at court, and King Frederick William II was so impressed that he tried to induce the young master to settle in Berlin.

On April 2, 1800, Beethoven gave the first concert of his own compositions. Of the works that were then performed for the first time, the beautiful Septet, op. 20, and the First Symphony, op. 21, quickly found their way into the regular concert repertoire throughout Austria and Germany and spread the fame of their author. At comparatively short intervals one great work followed another.

In 1808 Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, sought to attach the famous Vienna master to his own court at Cassel by offering him 600 gold ducats and the title of Hofkapellmeister. No sooner did this news become known in Vienna than Archduke Rudolf and the counts Kinsky and Kobkowitz pledged themselves to the payment of 4000 florins annually if Beethoven would refuse the King's offer and remain in Vienna.

Up to that time the fame of Beethoven had been limited to circles of musicians and the more serious music lovers. A concert given on December 8, 1813, established the master also in the popular favor. In the following year Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio -- produced originally in 1805 without success -- was thoroughly revised. In this new form it was received with favor on May 23, and has since then maintained a place in operatic repertoire.

About the year 1817 Beethoven's health, which had never been robust, began gradually to decline. From about 1798 his hearing had begun to fail, and in 1819 he became totally deaf. He still continued to compose, however, and during this time wrote some of his greatest works, which he was unable to hear performed. His last years were spent in misery and ill health.

In March 26, 1827, Beethoven passed away. In 1845, a Beethoven monument was errected in Bonn to commemorate him.

[Perfection]

Ludwig van Beethoven (16 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven's hearing gradually deteriorated beginning in his twenties, yet he continued to compose, and to conduct and perform, even after he was completely deaf.

Beethoven's personal life was troubled. His encroaching deafness led him to contemplate suicide. Sources show Beethoven's disdain for authority, and for social rank. He stopped performing at the piano if the audience chatted among themselves, or afforded him less than their full attention.

Romantic difficulties

The women who attracted Beethoven were unattainable because they were either married or aristocratic. Beethoven never married, although he was engaged to Giulietta Guiccardi. Her father was the main obstacle to their marriage. Giulietta's marriage to a nobleman was unhappy, and when it ended in 1822, she attempted unsuccessfully to return to Beethoven. His
only other documented love affair with an identified woman began in 1805 with Josephine von Brunswick, young widow of the Graf von Deym. It is believed the relationship ended by 1807 because of Beethoven's indecisiveness and the disapproval of Josephine's aristocratic family.

In 1812, Beethoven wrote a long love letter to a woman he identified only as "Immortal Beloved". Several candidates have been suggested, including Antonie Brentano, but the identity of the woman to whom the letter was written has never been proven.