105-1711

105 supposed date for Chinese eunuch Ts'ai Lun's invention of paper

150 earliest known rag paper (fragment discovered in Turkestan in 1904)

     700

793 caliph Haroun-el-Raschid establishes paper factory in Baghdad, with Chinese workmen

     800

800 first movable type printing system uses clay characters

808 woodblocks used to print text of Diamond Sutra scroll

868 woodblocks used to print paginated books in China

     1000

1023 paper money printed in China

1035 paper recycled in Japan

1066 Westminster Abbey opened

1085 metal type is used to print books in Korea

1086 Domesday Book

1095 First Crusade

     1100

1116 stitched bindings for books in China

1140 paper made in Egypt using mummy-wrappers

1155 map of western China is the oldest known printed map

     1200

1200 contrary to predictions, world doesn't end

1210 St Francis founds Franciscans

1215 Magna Carta

1236 Mongol empire issues paper money

1255 papermill in Genoa

1271 free daily newspapers and mass-circulation booklets in China

1282 paper watermarks produced in Italy

1285 spectacles invented in Italy

1298 Travels of Marco Polo published

     1300

1309 first recorded use of paper in England

1348 papermill in Troyes

1390 papermill in Nuremberg

1397 oldest surviving Korean text printed from movable type

     1400

1423 Europeans start using Chinese method of block printing text

1450 newsletters begin circulating in Europe

1451 Gutenberg uses press to print poem and Papal indulgences

1452 metal plates used in printing in Europe

1455 Gutenberg publishes the Bible

1455 Chinese abandon paper money after 7 years of hyperinflation

1464 French king establishes postal service

1466 Alberti's polyalphabetic cipher

1476 Caxton produces first book printed in English

1477 first handbill advertisement in England

1492 Columbus misses China, discovers America

1493 earliest known etching

1494 papermill in Hertford

1499 earliest known printed page numbers, in Perotti's Cornucopia

     1500

1508 earliest known German coloured woodcut, by Hans Burgkmair the Elder

1518 Trithemius produces first printed Western book on cryptology

1521 Cambridge University Press

1522 Luther's translation of New Testament published

1531 death of Burgkmair

1534 first Frankfurt Book Fair

1539 Pablos sets up press in Mexico City

1540 Recorde invents the equal (=) sign

1543 Copernicus's On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres

1545 Garamond designs printing typeface

1550 wallpaper arrives in Europe from China

1559 Pope Paul IV issues Index of Forbidden Books

1560 camera obscura allows precise tracing of an image

1565 lead pencil

1566 one of the world's first newspapers, Notizie Scritte, in Venice

1569 Mercator projection

1570 Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum atlas

1572 John Day introduced Roman type in England

1582 Gregorian Calendar

1587 Oxford University Press

     1600

1604 Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall, first English dictionary

1604 King James Bible

1609 Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, world's first regular newspaper

1612 Napier makes first printed use of decimal point

1622 Weekly News, first English newspaper

1622 first newspaper advertisement in England

1627 France introduces registered mail

1631 French newspaper carries classified ads

1637 tulip mania ceases in Holland

1639 first US books - Freeman's Oath and An Almanack

1640 Kirchner's magic lantern

1642 mezzotint

1642 Pascal's mechanical calculator

1650 slide rule invented by Gunter and Oughtred

1653 mail boxes in Paris for postage-paid letters

1659 first cheque drawn in London

1662 mass-production of the pencil

1663 Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen, Europe's first magazine

1666 first European printed paper banknote

1673 Leibniz's mechanical calculator

1687 Newton's Principia Mathematica

1689 first US newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Forreign & Domestick, printed in Massachusetts

1689 Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration

1690 papermill in Moscow

1694 Bank of England issues printed banknotes (with watermarks from 1697)

     1700

1702 The Daily Courant, first UK daily newspaper

1704 first newspaper advertisements in America

1706 The Evening Post, first evening newspaper issued in London

1709 first British Copyright Act

1710 three-colour printing invented by Le Blon





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