Johannes Gutenberg ( c. 1395 - 1468 ) How many newspapers, magazines and posters have you seen or read today? Many. But have you ever thought about the inventor who changed our life with the printing press? It was Johannes Gutenberg in 1440 with his printing press and movable blocks of letters and graphics that made materials available for the whole population.

Johannes Gutenberg was born between 1394 and 1400 in Mainz, Germany. The historians are not sure about it but many talk about 1395. He was a goldsmith and businessman. From 1430 to 1444 he moved to Strasbourg. He started his work on the printing press and married a woman from Strasbourg. During this time, exactly in the year 1438, Gutenberg was in contact with Andreas Dritzehn. He financed the experiments Gutenberg had to do for his printing press.

In 1440 he finished his printing press which is also known as a “hand press”. He started to print the first “Poem of the Last Judgment” and the “Calendar for 1448”. Another supporter of Gutenberg was Johann Fust. He helped Gutenberg to realize his desire of having an own printing business and built a giant “Gutenberg Press”. With this press he started to print the “Gutenberg Bible”. Two hundred copies were published in 1452. In 1455 Gutenberg got bankrupt and his investor Johann Fust had the power over the business but Gutenberg did not give up and tried to find another investor with success. It was Conrad Humery. He died in the year 1468 in Mainz, Germany, during a fire.

What will life be without the printing press? If you think about it there are a lot things that will be different. We will have less books and they will be very expensive, the education will be different because the knowledge will not be available for the mass. The life will be very different.

Physics