It's November the 17th, 1520, Wittenburg, Germany.

At a local print shop, the printer sends an errand boy to the Augustinian cloister with a message.

No, it don't need a boy, huh?

The message begs Luther for more books and pamphlets to print.

He simply cannot keep up with the demand for everything Luther writes.

Luther writes in the language of the people. He thinks the way German people think.

He uses word pictures they understand which resonate in their imaginations.

So it's no surprise that Luther is becoming the best-selling author of the 16th century,

all without an agent and without any worldly aspirations.

Three years ago, because of printers in Vittenberg and beyond, copies of the 95 Theses had

blanketed Germany like freshly fallen snow.

Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.

But just a few short decades before,

the mass printing and distribution of Luther's ideas would have been

technologically impossible.

For centuries, every single published word in Europe had to be handwritten by monks with goose quills.

Every monastery in Europe had a scriptorium where scribes copied manuscripts preserving books from the past. The

Cybes copied manuscripts preserving books from the past.

But in 1450, just 33 years before Luther was born,

Johann Gutenberg changed everything. He introduced metal moveable type

printing to Europe. It raised the quality of printing, made books easier and quicker to produce, and as a result made them much cheaper to buy.

An information revolution was underway. The Vulgate Bible was the first book off the presses

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