How did the printing press change the course of history?
One machine broke the Church's monopoly on knowledge.
The answer
Johannes Gutenberg's movable-type printing press, developed around 1440, reduced the cost of producing a book by roughly 80% and increased output from a few pages per day to 3,600 pages. Within 50 years, over 20 million volumes had been printed across Europe. This information explosion enabled the Protestant Reformation (Luther's 95 Theses spread like wildfire), accelerated the Scientific Revolution, and ultimately democratized literacy - reshaping religion, science, and politics permanently.
Source: Britannica
- printing
- information
- Renaissance
- Germany
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