This episode of the Kings Hall podcast is brought to you by Joe Garrison with

backwards planning financial by Alpine Gold by Max D trailers salt and strings

butchery full stadium marketing and by Squirly Joe's Coffee. In 1436 a German goldsmith revolutionized the process of disseminating information and ideas around the world with his new invention of the

printing press. Johannes Gutenberg wasn't the first person to utilize movable type.

In fact, the Chinese had been using woodblock printing dating back to the ninth century,

and Korean bookmakers began using movable metal type roughly a century before the German.

Gutenberg's pivotal innovation was roughly a century before the German.

Gutenberg's pivotal innovation was the utilization of a screw-type wine press

that squeezed down evenly on inked metal type.

In turn, he found a way to streamline the printing process

so that the production of books was relatively inexpensive,

thus making publication of revolutionary ideas and the riches of ancient knowledge

available to the masses.

European literacy as a result doubled every century following the introduction of large scale printing.

Ironically, Gutenberg didn't live long enough to see the massive impact of his printing press. The greatest accomplishment in his life was the first

print run of the Latin Bible. It took him roughly three years to print 200 copies of the Bible, which seems slow by today's standards,

but was truly revolutionary in the age of painstakingly hand-copied manuscripts.

Because of extremely low literacy rates, however,

there wasn't exactly a booming consumer base

to purchase Gutenberg's products.

As a result, he died penniless and his presses were impounded by creditors.

Those who remained in the printing business fled to Venice, Italy, which was the central shipping city of the Mediterranean during the 15th century.

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