The World
The Printing Press
A machine that made books fast and cheap — and changed how the whole world learns.
Read as Ages 7–9 · a fuller story
Before the 1400s, every book in Europe was copied out by hand, one page at a time. Books were rare and expensive, so very few people owned them.
Around 1450, a German craftsman named Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press that used small metal letters called movable type. He could arrange the letters to spell out a page, ink them, and press them onto paper — then print the same page again and again. Suddenly books could be made quickly and cheaply, and ideas could travel farther than ever before.
See also
For older readers