The Printing Press

The printing press: perhaps one of the most innovative inventions of all time. Although not as advanced as a computer, or as fast as a car, the printing press has made more changes to the modern world than you could possibly imagine.

     Let's rewind around 575 years: It was the year 1440. The Prussian confederation recently formed, Bluebeard the pirate had been hanged, Ivan the Great had just conquered Lithuania, and somewhere in the Holy Roman Empire, Johannes Gutenberg had made a device that would revolutionize the world: The printing press.

     For those among us who don't know, the printing press is a machine that presses ink onto a surface, usually cloth or paper. This process is called "printing". You got that?

     The invention of the printing press forever changed the way knowledge and information spread across the world. It resulted in cheaper printed materials, the creation of many industries , and information spreading faster than ever.

     So, let's look at the economic effects that the printing press had on the world. Before the printing press, manuscripts were painstakingly copied by hand, usually my monks in special rooms called scriptoriums. It took anywhere from 8 to 12 months for a monk to copy a book, and then a second monk had to review the book, and check for errors. Factoring in all the time it would take, and the cost of the materials, a copy of the Christian Bible would cost roughly around $30,000! With the introduction of the printing press, the cost of books went down significantly, and even some peasants could afford books!

     Another effect the printing press had on the world was the creation of many new industries. In the early 15th century, you could not simply walk into a bookstore and purchase a copy of "How I Survived The Black Plague In Five Easy Steps". Likewise, you had to be very rich in order to get anything copied. With the printing press, all of this changed. It was now easier than ever to print and purchase books, and this resulted in a larger in a larger literate public. How would you feel if you learned that you could make loads of money just by printing somebody's lame book about pecans? New businesses sprang up all across Europe, and businesses such as bookstores and libraries became very common.

     The printing press is also single handedly responsible for the explosion of information and knowledge. Let's say you were a scientist back in the 15th century. If you had discovered that bread was actually a sentient being, what would you do with your findings? Write it down, and then what? With the printing press, you could simply go to a printing shop, and then write a book about your discovering of the Bread Beings. Then, once your book becomes a best seller, go back to the printing shop, and get them to print out posters and various pamphlets to start a large scale movement to send the Bread Beings back to their wheaty, whole grain bread planet.

     Before we wrap up, here's some smaller changes that the printing press brought upon the world: The terms "uppercase" and "lowercase" owe their creation to the use of the printing press. When you went to the market to purchase letters for your printing press, the letters were stored in large cases on shelves. The larger letters were usually kept in a case that was higher up, making them in the "upper case".

 The words "stereotype" and "cliche" also are a direct result of the printing press' invention. Words that were used so often in a press were often sold as one single block so that they could be used continuously without having to reset the letters. These blocks were called a "stereotype", or a "cliche", which is the French term for it.

 You can clearly see that the printing press has changed the world in more ways than you thought.



I'm not too sure how to end this presentation...

Can I use fireworks?

Does that work?

Like... Fireworks and credits?

Yeah.

Let's do that.

The end.