The Story of Communication:
Printing—Timeline
(early dates are approximate)
BCE
2640 : China produces silk. It will serve as a writing surface.
650 : Egyptian papyrus arrives in Greek cities.
400 : Chinese write on silk as well as wood, bamboo.
200 : Tipao gazettes are circulated to Chinese officials.
170 : Books are written on parchment and vellum, treated
animal skins.
150 : Paper is placed in Chinese tombs.
59 : Julius Caesar orders postings of Acta Diurna.
CE
105: Chinese imperial eunuch T’sai Lun is officially credited with inventing
paper.
250: Paper use spreads west from China to central Asia.
350: Chinese develop xylography, printing of books from wooden blocks.
450: Ink on seals is stamped on paper in China. This is true printing.
600: Books printed in China.
740: A newspaper is printed in China.
751: Paper made outside of China, in Samarkand by Chinese captured in war.
765: Picture books printed in Japan.
793: Paper-making moves west to Baghdad at the height of Islamic culture.
868: The Diamond Sutra, block-printed book in China; it’s the oldest existing
book.
950: Paper is made in Damascus and Cairo.
1048: Pi Sheng, a Chinese commoner, fabricates movable type using clay.
1147: Crusader taken prisoner escapes with papermaking art, according to a legend.
1234: Koreans use movable metal type.
1276: At Fabriano, Italy, the first paper mill is built in Christian Europe.
1282: In the Fabriano mill, watermarks are added to paper.
1298: Marco Polo tells of paper money in China. Few Europeans believe such nonsense.
1392: Koreans have a type foundry to produce bronze characters.
1418: The earliest surviving dated woodcut in Europe.
1423: Europeans use xylography (block printing) to produce books.
1440: Possible date of Johnannes Gutenberg’s first printing effort.
1450: A few newsletters begin circulating in Europe.
1456: Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible is illuminated and bound.
1457: Found in Gutenberg’s city of Mainz, earliest example of color printing.
1476: William Caxton brings Gutenberg’s invention of printing to England,
1486: A colored, illustrated book is printed in St. Albans, England.
1490: Printing of books on paper becomes more common in Europe.
1498: Music is printed in Venice using movable type.
1500: By now approximately 35,000 books have been printed, some 10 million copies.
1500: In England, the growth of middle class literacy.
1522: Martin Luther publishes German translation of New Testment.
1525: William Tyndale publishes first translation of the New Testament into English.
1534: Martin Luther finishes translating Old Testament into German.
1536: New Testament translator William Tyndale is strangled, burned at the stake.
1558: Child’s speller written in England as spelling consistency gradually
emerges.
1559: Pope Paul IV creates an Index of Prohibited Books; bans books of Erasmus.
1582: A dictionary of hard English words is published.
1584: Printing introduced to the New World, in Peru.
1602: Oxford University’s Bodleian opens, the first public library.
1605: First regularly published weekly newspaper appears in Antwerp.
1611: The King James edition of the Bible is published.
1620: News sheets called “corantos” are sold in Europe.
1625: Printed in an English newspaper: an advertisement.
1631: A French newspaper carries classified ads.
1640: Puritan’s press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, prints the Bay Psalm
Book.
1650: Leipzig has the first daily newspaper.
1673: From Holland, a paper pulp beating machine.
1691: First papermill in the American colonies, in Germantown, PA.
1698: Public library opens in Charleston, S.C., first in America.
1702: The first daily newspaper in the English language, the Daily Courant.
1702: Engraving made with three primary colors and black.
1704: John Harris’ Lexicon technicum, the first modern encyclopedia.
1704: In the American colonies city of Boston, a newspaper prints advertising.
1704: Daniel Defoe publishes first weekly periodical, The Review.
1710: German engraver Le Blon develops three-color printing.
1712: Invention of steam engine sets the basis for the Industrial Revolution.
1714: Henry Mill receives patent in England for a typewriter; does not build
it.
1719: French scientist Rene de Réaumur proposes using wood to make paper.
1725: Scottish printer develops stereotyping system.
1731: Ben Franklin establishes first public library in America.
1741: Benjamin Franklin publishes first magazines in American colonies.
1783: Pensylvania Evening Post, the first daily newspaper in America.
1783: Noah Webster’s American Spelling Book will be a best-seller.
1784: French book paper is made from vegetation without rags.
1790: The first U.S. copyright law, protection for 14 years.
1792. Alien and Sedition Acts limit freedom to publish in recently born U.S.
1796: American Cookery, first cookbook published in America.
1798: Nickolas Robert in France invents the “Fourdrinier” paper-making
machine.
1798: Aloys Senefelder in Munich invents lithography. He will write about it
in 1818.
1800: Iron press permits printing on large sheets of paper.
1800: In Germany, a simple sizing process for paper.
1802: Library of Congress established.
1808: Turri of Italy builds a typewriter for a blind contessa.
1809: John Dickinson invents a cylinder paper-making machine.
1814: In England, a steam-powered press prints The Times, 1,100 copies an hour.
1814: In destroying Washington, D.C., British troops burn down Library of Congress.
1819: Napier builds a rotary printing press.
1822: Bowdler “bowdlerizes” the Old Testament of sexy or “irreligious” passages.
1829: William Burt gets the first U.S. patent for a typewriter.
1830: Calendered paper is produced in England.
1832: In England, Philip Watt invents sewing machine, can bind books.
1832: The Penny Magazine is first mass market magazine, first with woodcuts.
1833: A penny buys a newspaper, the New York Sun, opening a mass market.
1839: In Russia, Jacobi invents electrotyping, the duplicating of printing plates.
1839: Electricity runs a printing press.
1840: German paper makers experiment with wood pulp.
1841: The first type-composing machine goes into use in London.
1842: Illustrated London News begins publication with engravings.
1844: Electrotyping in book printing makes plates of type and woodcuts.
1845: The typewriter ribbon.
1846: Richard Hoe’s cylinder press produces 8,000 sheets an hour.
1850: Number of U.S. public libraries triples in 25 years.
1851: In the U.S., paper is made from wood fiber.
1852: Massachusetts is first state to enact compulsory education law.
1854: Curved stereotype plate can eliminate column rules; wide ads follow.
1856: Machine folds paper for books, newspapers.
1857: A machine to set type is demonstrated.
1860: “Dime novels,” printed on cheap, rough paper, sell well.
1863: William Bullock invents the rotary web-fed letterpress.
1865: Web offset press prints both side of a continuous roll of paper at once.
1867: Christopher Sholes of Wisconsin builds a Type-Writer.
1867: Horatio Alger writes first of 130 books for boys.
1870: Wood pulp is widely used to make paper.
1870: More than 5,000 newspapers are published in the U.S.
1873: Typewriters get the QWERTY pseudo-scientific keyboard.
1873: Remington starts manufacturing Christopher Sholes’ typewriter.
1873: A photograph is reproduced using halftone method.
1875: Edison invents the mimeograph while trying to improve telegraph tape.
1875: U.S. has 257 public libraries.
1875: Cheap book reprints published in series called “libraries.”
1876: Melvil Dewey develops a library book classification decimal system.
1878: Photogravure printing improved for illustrations.
1879: Benday process aids newspaper production of maps, drawings.
1880: A halftone photograph, “Shantytown,” appears in a newspaper.
1886: Ottmar Mergenthaler’s Linotype at the N.Y. Tribune ends setting type
by hand.
1886: One-third of all books published in U.S. are cheap paperbacks.
1890: Typewriters are in common use in offices.
1891: Large press prints and folds 90,000 4-page papers an hour.
1892: Portable typewriters.
1892: 4-color rotary press.
1895: In England, Friese-Greene invents phototypesetting.
1896: Electric power is used to run a paper mill.
1896: The monotype sets type by machine in single characters.
1896: To date, 450,000 typewriters have been manufactured.
1896: Underwood model permits typists to see what they are typing.
1899: Ragtime music, like Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag, sells sheet music.
1900: Total newspaper circulation in U.S. passes 15 million daily.
1900: 562 cities in U.S. have more than one daily newspaper; New York City has
29.
1900: More than 50 magazines in U.S. have circulation above 100,000.
1900: Estimated 1,800 magazines are being published in the United States.
1901: Andrew Carnegie begins to build public libraries across the U.S.
1901: First electric typewriter, the Blickensderfer.
1902: Muckraking begins with a Lincoln Steffens article in McClure’s Magazine.
1904: Offset lithography becomes a commercial reality.
1904: “Muckraker” Ida Tarbell’s exposé, History
of the
Standard Oil Company.
1906: In Britain, new process colors books cheaply.
1907: A photocopier is marketed.
1910: Daily newspapers in U.S. peak at 2,200.
1911: Rotogravure aids magazine production of photos.
1911: Photoplay, first movie fan magazine.
1915: Comstock retires after burning “60 train cars” of books, photos,
drawings.
1917: Photocomposition begins.
1918: In Russia, Communists send agit-prop trains out with propaganda.
1918: All U.S. states require education through elementary school.
1922: The Reader’s Digest begins its monthly run.
1923: Time, the first weekly newsmagazine.
1925: The New Yorker.
1926: The Book-of-the-Month Club starts: cut-rate books by subscription.
1928: The Oxford English Dictionary, begun in 1858, is finished: 15,487 pages.
1932: Visagraph translates print into embossed pages so blind can read, see pictures.
1932: Electric-eye enables typesetting machine to scan print without operator.
1933: Nazis begin burning of books.
1935: In England, Penguin Press sells paperbacks.
1935: IBM’s electric typewriter comes off the assembly line.
1937: Chester Carlson invents the photocopier, Xerography process.
1939: Pocket Books, paperback reprints for 25 cents.
1941: Pocket Books begins first mass distribution system for books.
1944: IBM offers a typewriter with proportional spacing.
1946: The Photon, the first practical phototypesetting machine.
1950: Changeable typewriter typefaces in use.
1950: Xerox photocopiers roll off the assembly line.
1955: Teletypesetting, using paper tape, diffuses among American newspapers.
1957: First book to be entirely phototypeset is offset printed.
1958: Billboard’s “Hot 100” chart lists the hits.
1959: Xerox manufactures a plain paper copier.
1961: IBM Selectric “golf ball” typewriter.
1962: Marshall McLuhan’s The Gutenberg Galaxy sees limits for print media.
1966: Linotron can produce 1,000 alphanumeric characters per second for printing.
1967: Newspapers, magazines introduce computers into their operations.
1971: Newspapers massively switch from hot metal letterpress to offset.
1973: IBM’s Selectric typewriter is now “self-correcting.”
1974: U.S. newspapers start to replace reporters’ typewriters with terminals.
1978: Electronic typewriters go on sale.
1978: Xerox manufactures the first laser printer.
1980: Lasers are used to set type, a boon to Chinese printers.
1982: USA Today typeset in regional plants by satellite command.
1985: Desktop publishing becomes familiar.
1990: IBM sells its Selectric division, a sign of the typewriter’s passing.
1990: Desktop-published magazines, newsletters start to appear.
1995: U.S. population continues to increase, but newspaper readership declines.
1998: In U.S. alone, 70,000 book titles this year, 50,000 publishers.
1998: “Sonny Bono Act” extends copyright: to lifetime plus 70 years.
1999: Americans are buying average of 8 books a year, 3 times pre-WWII.
1999: Number of U.S. daily newspapers drops to 1,483, total 56 million circulation.
2000: Use of common office paper in U.S. rises almost 15% since 1995.
2000: People are reading e-books on book-size electronic units.
2003: Supreme Court mandates porn filters in federally funded public libraries.
2003: Amazon.com scans texts of 120,000 books for Internet users.
2003: Two AARP magazines far outstrip all others in circulation.
2003: One-third of books bought in U.S. is a romance novel.
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Other Resources for Printing
