MI Printing: Printing as Part of World Events and History

When you look at a list of the 50 most important events in all of history it should not be surprising that the world of printing is mentioned 10 times. Communication is ranked right up there with fire, the wheel and metallurgy.  With communications, publishing and printing mentioned as 20% of the top 50 events in human history you can ubderstand how proud we are to be part of the tradition of printing.

3200 BC Invention of writing in Mesopotamia: the means to record and understand human history.

1600 BC Modern alphabet invented: the essential means of communication of complex concepts and culture.

AD 105 First use of modern paper: this replaced stone, slate, papyrus and vellum as a cheap and convenient medium.

AD 730 Printing invented in China: an essential step in mass communication/ administration/cultural dissemination.

1088 First university founded in Bologna, Italy: the start of a modern conception of higher learning and universal knowledge.

1455 First book printed with moveable type: Johannes Gutenberg’s revolution in printing technology makes mass-market reading possible.

1651 Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan is published: this is the origin of the modern idea of civil society, equality before the law and egoistic individualism]

1687 Isaac Newton publishes Principia Mathematica, the foundation of modern physics.

1859 Publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species. His theory of evolution transforms the view of Man and his environment, and belief in God.

1905 Einstein’s theory of special relativity published. It transforms the nature of modern physical knowledge.

Have a great day.

Matt & Paula