Man of the Millennium

Yo Johannes! Maybe I am a bit old fashioned dredging up ancient history but I'm in good company. A&E Television's popular show "Biography" named Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1478) the most influential person of the last millennium. In the opinion of more than 360 academics, journalists and political leaders polled by the show, Gutenberg's moveable type exerted the greatest influence on humanity during the past 1,000 years. The inventor edged out Sir Isaac Newton and Martin Luther, who finished third. The following quote is from the A&E program:

Printing wasn't a new idea; the Chinese and Koreans had used wood and metal type to print, but the process was slow and unwieldy. In the West, most books were hand-copied by monks, so a single volume might take months to produce. Gutenberg's breakthrough came when he combined earlier printing techniques with a new design for moveable type. Then he put it all together with a press similar to one used to make olive oil. And with this, printing history was made. Gutenberg would continue in the printing trade until his death, but he was always short of money. In fact, when his typeset Bible appeared, all the profits went to his creditors. Yet, what Gutenberg created was astonishing. Within 50 years, 20 million books had been printed in Europe. In another hundred years that number increased tenfold. Over the past five centuries that information has altered the face of history. Power left the hands of the elite, as a literate middle class was born. All around the world, authoritarian states continue finding it more and more difficult to keep their citizens in the dark.