Johann Gutenberg
Johann Gutenberg, or Johannes Gutenberg, was a German blacksmith, printer, and publisher. He is credited with creating the printing press and within that movable type, which was extremely important to Europe during the Renaissance and revolutionized printing everywhere. It helped to make printing more practical and time-efficient. Therefore, many copies of books and other products using text were mass produced. He also published a 42-line version of the bible known as the Gutenberg Bible, which was the first major book produced by movable type. Johann Gutenberg was born in Mainz, Germany around 1398 C.E. and died around 1468 C.E. However, his invention was still influencing, and still is influencing, people long after his death.…show more content… The use of blocks of wood to print characters started in India around 200 B.C.E, and soon worked its way to China and the Middle East. Around 500 C.E. was when the Chinese began printing on paper, and by Gutenberg’s time, around 1400 C.E, block printing was already introduced to Europe. However, unlike Gutenberg’s version, the common form of block printing at the time was very time consuming and was very expensive due to the fact that each individual word or phrase was on a separate block. It was not practical to the Europeans, as they were facing many other advancements and growing innovations during the Renaissance. Johann Gutenberg provided a both easy and fast way to print books, thus making very practical and helpful to the Europeans as well as other parts of the world. This was called movable