The global spread of the printing press began with the invention of the printing press with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany (circa 1439). Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing.
In the Western world, the operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of publishing and lent its name to a new branch of media, the press (see list of newspapers by date).
Famous quotes containing the words printing press, global, spread, printing and/or press:
“The printing press was at first mistaken for an engine of immortality by everybody except Shakespeare.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“However global I strove to become in my thinking over the past twenty years, my sons kept me rooted to an utterly pedestrian view, intimately involved with the most inspiring and fractious passages in human development. However unconsciously by now, motherhood informs every thought I have, influencing everything I do. More than any other part of my life, being a mother taught me what it means to be human.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1985)
“The printing press was at first mistaken for an engine of immortality by everybody except Shakespeare.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)