Johann Guttenburg is often called the inventor of printing. What he actually did was to develop the first method of utilizing movable type and the printing press in such a way that a large variety of written material could be printed with speed and accuracy. No invention springs full-blown from the mind of a single man, and certainly printing did not. Seals and signet rings, which work on the same principle as block printing, had been used since ancient times. Block printing had been known in China many centuries before Guttenburg, and, in fact, a printed book dating from about 868 has been discovered there. The process was also known in the West before Guttenburg. Block printing makes possible the production of many copies of given book. However, the process has one major drawback: since a completely new set of woodcuts or plates must be made for each new book, it is impractical for producing a large variety of books. It is sometimes said that Guttenburg's main contribution was the invention of movable type. Hoowever, movable type was invented in China, some time in the middle of the eleventh century, by a man named Pi Sheng. His original type was made of earthenware, which is not very durable, however, other Chinese and Koreans made a series of improvements, and well before Guttenburg, Koreans were using metal type. In fact, the Korean government was supporting a foundry for the production of printing type in the early fifteenth century. Despite all this, it would be a mistake to think of Pi Sheng as a particularly infleuntial persons. In the first place, Europe did not learn of movable type from China, but developed independently. In the second place, printing by means of movable type never came into general use in China itself until camparatively recent times, when modern printing procedures were learned from the West. There are essential components of modern printing methods. The first is movable type, along with some procedure for setting it and fixing it in position. The second is the printing press itself. The third is a suitable type of ink, and the last is a suitable material, such as paper, on which to print. Paper had been invented in China many centuries earlier (by Ts'ai Lun), and its use had spread to the West before Guttenburg's day. That was the element of the printing process that Guttenburg found ready made. Although some work had been done before him on each of the other three elements, Guttenburg made a variety of important improvements. For example he developed a metal alloy suitable for type; a mold for casting blocks of type precisely and accurately; an oil-based printing ink, and a press suitable for printing. But Guttenburg's overall contribution was far greater than any of his individual inventions or improvements. He is important principally because he combined all the elements of printing into an effective system of production. For printing, unlike all prior inventions, is essentially a process of mass production. A single rifle is in itself a more effective weapon than a single bow and arrow. A single printed book, however, is no different in it's effect from a single hand-written book. The advantage of printing therefore is mass production. What Guttenburg developed was not a single gadget or devise, or even a series of improvements, but a complete manufacturing process. Our biographical information concerning Guttenburg is scanty. We know that he was born around the year 1400, in the city of Mainz, Germany. His contributions to the art of printing were made in the middle of the century, and his best known work, the so-called Guttenburg Bible, was printed at Mainz, around about 1454. Curiously, Guttenburg's name does not actually appear on any of his books, not even on the Guttenburg Bible, although it was clearly printed with his equipment. He does not appear to be a good businessman; certainly he never managed to make much money on his invention. He was involved in Several lawsuits, one of which seems to have resulted in his forefeiting his equipment to his partner, Johann Fust. Guttenburg died in 1468, in Mainz. Some idea of Guttenburg's impact on world history can be gained by comparing the subsequent development of China and Europe. At the time Guttenburg was born, the two regions were about equally advanced technologically. But after Guttenburg's invention of modern printing, Europe progressed very rapidly, while in China-where the use of block printing was continued until much later-progress was comparitively slow. It is probably an overstatement to say that the development of printing was the only factor causing this divergence; certainly, however, it was an important factor. It is worth noting that only three persons on this list lived during the five centuries, preceding Guttenburg, whereas sixty-seven lived during the five centuries following his death. This suggests that Guttenburgs invention was a major factor-possibly even the crucial factor-in triggering the revolutionary developements of modern times. It seems fairly certain that even had Alexander Graham Bell never lived, the telephone would still have been invented, and at about the same point in history. The same can be said of many other inventions. Without Guttenburg, though, the invention of modern printing might have been delayed for generations, and in view of the overwhelming impact of printing on subsequent history, Guttenburg assuredly deserves a high place on our list.