History of Print Source - printinghistory.org/timeline/
circa 3100 BCE Cuneiform, one of the earliest known writing systems developed in Sumer (modern day Iraq). Wedge-shaped marks were made on clay tablets by a blunt stylus cut from a reed.
circa 3000 Papyrus plant, paper-like material used as a writing surface in Egypt. Ink from lamp-black made in China.
circa 500 Amate, a beaten paper-like material, made in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.
circa 200 Parchment, a material made from processed animal skin, used as a writing surface in Pergamon (Anatolian Greece, Asia Minor, now Turkey).
105 CE Invention of the papermaking process credited to Ts'ai Lun [Cai Lun] a palace advisor during the Han Dynasty of China.
circa 500 Papermaking in Samarkand (modern day Uzbekistan).
711 Moors invade Spain, introducing papermaking techniques from the east.
794 Papermill established in Baghdad, Abbasid dynasty ( present day Iraq).
circa 800 Book of Kells illuminated Latin manuscript Gospel produced in Britain and Ireland.
868 The oldest dated printed text known: The Diamond Sutra, a Chinese translation of a Buddhist text now preserved in the British Library.
932 Chinese printers adapt Wood-block printing to mass-produce classical books.
1041 Movable type, made from baked clay, invented in China.
1151 First papermill in Europe at Xàtiva (Spain).
1239 The oldest Metal-Movable-Type printed book is "The Song of Enlightenment with Commentaries by Buddhist Monk Nammyeong Cheon (南明泉和尙頌證道歌)”. (The Goryeo (高麗) Dynasty of Korea)
1282 Watermarks first used in Italian-made paper.
1298 Marco Polo reported seeing the printing of paper money in China.
1309 Paper first used in England.
1377 The world's second oldest extant book printed with movable metal type Baekun Hwasang Chorok Buljo Jikji Simche Yojeol (Korean: 백운화상초록불조직지심체요절, 白雲和尙抄錄佛祖直指心體要節, Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests' Zen Teachings) published in Cheungju (淸州), Korea, now at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). It is often abbreviated to Jikji (직지, 直指).
1403 Guild of Stationers, consisting of booksellers, scribes, illustrators and bookbinders, founded in London.
1423 European wood block print: St. Christopher with the infant Christ.
1430s Engraving, combined with drypoint, was first used for intaglio printing plates in Germany.
1438–44 Adjustable type mold developed by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz (Germany).
1454 First dated European document: a papal indulgence attributed to Gutenberg.
1455 Gutenberg's Bible completed by his creditor Johann Fust and his own workman Peter Schoeffer.
1464 Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweinheim, first printers in Italy (Subiaco) and first to use a Roman printing type.
1465 Drypoint engraving developed in Germany. Greek type used in Cicero's De officiis printed by Fust and Schoeffer.
1473 The Constance Gradual, the earliest printed music (after the single line of music in the 1457 Mainz Psalter). William Caxton prints the first book in English, Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy, in Bruges in collaboration with the Flemish printer Colard Mansion. Three years later Caxton then set up a printshop in England.
1476 Intaglio used for book illustration, a printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, and the incision line or sunken area holds the ink. It is the opposite of relief printing such as letterpress. First modern title page in Regiomontanus's Kalendario printed by Erhard Ratdolt in Venice.
1478 Printing begins at Oxford University.
1486 Erhard Ratdolt issues earliest known type specimen in Venice.
1493 Nuremberg Chronicle one of the first books to successfully integrate illustrations and text.
1495 Paper mill established in England.
circa 1495 Etching developed by metalsmith Daniel Hopfer in Augsburg (Germany).
1498–1501 Odhecaton, book of music printed from movable type.
1499 Woodcut of a printing press appears in La Grande Danse Macabre printed by Matthias Huss at Lyon.
