The printing press is the most important invention in the last 1000 years. It has had an enormous effect on every culture in the world and started an industry that controls massive amounts of power. Without this invention our world would be very different whether for better or worse.
The original method of printing was invented in China and was known as block printing. It was a very simple process in which you pressed sheets of paper into individually carved wooden blocks. The Diamond Sutra of AD 868 is the first dated example of block printing. The technique was also known in Europe, where it was mostly used to print Bibles. Since it was difficult to carve out each letter and most of Europe was illiterate the "Pauper's Bible" was printed and it emphasized pictures. And since a new block had to be carved for each page, a variety of books could not be printed. …
