Books, newspapers, flyers - the abundance of all of these is possible because of the invention of the printing press. The printing press, brought into Europe in 1450, allowed books to be printed without immense labor, thus decreasing the cost to copy books and increasing the number of books that could be copied.  Before this, monks would rewrite and copy books by hand in order to grow and preserve the world’s collection of books. Although we see this technology in almost every home and business nowadays, we do not use it today to its full potential. Sure, a lot of people print worksheets, sheet music, and pictures, but that is all relatively meaningless. Two hundred years from today, nobody will remember the picture or the selfie you printed off the internet, but there is something we do remember. When Martin Luther wrote and printed the 95-theses and nailed it to the Castle Church door on October 31, 1517, the whole world heard that nail pounding into the wooden door, and the whole world watched the aftermath of that single nail in all of Europe. The whole world now knows his name, and he is the man who used the printing press the best. 

Martin Luther was born in Germany, in 1483, to a poor family. Determined that he would get a good education, his family scraped up all the funds they could get so that he could go to school and then later to university. After Luther finished university, got his degree, and became a professor, he was constantly tormented by his demons that pointed out to him that his sinfulness would lose him his salvation, so he entered an Augustinian monastery and became a monk. There,  he continued teaching in the university and was regarded very highly in society. Luther created the Lutheran denomination and gathered a significant following base in Germany. 

What Luther is most famous for, however, is the 95 theses - an argument against the order of the church. At this time, corruption reeked in the church.  A practice called Indulgences was a means for people to pay for services in the church - such as repentance, marriage, and baptism - services that were supposed to be provided by the church for free. Additionally, the church was electing leaders not based on knowledge or qualification, but based on interest - whether that be money or relations. Outraged by the hypocrisy and the corruption, Luther wanted a change, so he wrote the 95 theses, nailed it to the church door, and waited for a change. Luther’s intentions with the 95 theses were to simply bring awareness to the faults. However, unfortunately for Luther, as a result of his actions, a terrible controversy came, and he was tried for heresy, found guilty, and excommunicated. However, Luther’s writings stirred up people’s minds, and they were ready to listen. 

In order to grasp everyone’s attention with the 95 theses, Martin Luther had to have a way to copy the paper, which was rather hefty, and send it to all of his followers. If done by hand, this process would have taken a lifetime, so Luther used the newly invented printing press to spread his word and share his message. Not only was Martin Luther’s use of technology for such a powerful purpose revolutionary, his message was revolutionary, and this caused major havoc in the church. As another result of using the printing press, the books were much cheaper and less time-consuming to make, so it would not be sentimental for books to be shipped across Europe, which is exactly what Luther did. Luther wanted everyone to know about the wrongs of the church and to stop any wrongdoings in their own respective churches, so he sent copies of the 95 theses all over Europe and beyond.

Before the printing press, very few books existed, but the ones that did were gorgeous. Almost all monasteries had a place called a Scriptorium, or a room where they would keep all of their books and create new ones. It was here where the scribes would carefully copy each and every word, and the illuminator would add designs and embellishments to the pages. This process was very risky because if you are copying a massive book and accidentally make a mistake down one page, you have to restart the whole page, making this process even more painstakingly long. Now, because the average only can write about 22 words per minute, or 1300 words per hour when it is copying something, so long texts such as the bible or history accounts would take an immense amount of time to finish by hand. Additionally, because Monasteries were the main places that books can be found, they were one of the only places where history accounts were safely stored. This meant that if a Monastery was raided and burned, history would be lost. This is one of the reasons the invention of the printing press was so crucial to our world.

If the printing press did not exist to this day, mailmen would not have jobs, mass publishing companies would never have existed, history might have already been lost, and the minds around the world would not be thriving off the information found in books. The history of the printing press is actually rather controversial. A man named Johann is given most of the credit for inventing the printing press in Europe, however, the printing press was already in China and Korea long before. ’s work was still revolutionary  - he made the method that was in China and Korea much easier, quicker, and more accessible, but how did it work?

We see that the concept of a printing press was not new, because about 600 years prior to the printing press in Gutenberg, letter blocks were being dipped in ink to copy pages by Chinese monks. And, although this process was far more efficient than writing a whole book by hand, it was very time-consuming. Some of the earlier techniques involved making wooden blocks of whole pages - which entailed a scribe or a craftsman carefully chiseling out each letter backward upon a wooden block, then applying ink, and carefully pressing each page against the wooden block.  It is evident why is given all of the credit for the printing press, after all, what he did was revolutionary.  created letters - capital and lowercase, and characters, so that instead of pre-making a page for every single book that was to be copied, they could instead use the letters that were used for books before. This allowed the printing press to be much, much faster, more efficient, and cheaper. It is still important to note that is a creator of the printing press, he helped establish it and get it a step further to where it is today, but he did not come up with all of the ideas of actually having a printing press - this was done hundreds of years before him. 

After the improvement of this great device, education improved greatly in the renaissance - in both the secular and religious lives of the people. Books were able to be mass published for the people. Additionally, where before books were only available to the rich because of the steep costs, books were not very cheap and everyone could own them. However, up until the time of Martin Luther, the printing presses were only ever used for the making and copying of books, so what Luther did was revolutionary. Luther wanted to use technology to spread his word faster and with greater impact, and that he did, causing what we see today as the Protestant Reformation, which had a snowball effect on the Catholic Reformation, the 30-year war, and to where we are today, in a world with many denominations in the Christian Church.

Martin Luther lit a candle for all of the generations in Germany and throughout the whole world to make a change using words. He showed the great impact that words have on society and that using the technology in ways that are not common to your time can lead and will most likely always lead to wonderful results. When the Church of Rome was corrupt, Luther wrote. And when he nailed that 95 - theses to the doors of the Church, the whole world heard that nail go into the Church door. What Luther did with his grievances with the Church was by no means uncommon - whenever someone would have a grievance, they would write it up and nail it in the church door, it was the fact that Luther used the printing press that made his work so revolutionary.