In America, the first newspaper appeared in Boston in 1690, entitled ‘public Occurrence’. But it was immediately suppressed, and all copies 
were destroyed. The first successful newspaper was the ‘Boston News Letter’, begun by postmaster John Campbell in 1704. But it had only a very limited circulation. By the eve of the Revolutionary War, some two dozen papers were issued at all the colonies. Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania would remain the centres of American printing for many years. By the war’s end in 1783, there were forty-three newspapers in print. The press played a vital role in the affairs of the new nation. Many more newspapers were started, representing all shades of political opinion. The top five daily newspapers in the USA today are the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. The total daily and Sunday papers amount to more than 2,300. This figure represents the highest number of newspapers, with the highest total circulation for any country in the world.
Ages in Europe, handwritten newsletters were circulated privately among merchants, passing along information about everything from wars and economic conditions to social customs and human interest The first printed forerunners of the newspaper appeared in Germany in the late 1400’s in the form of news pamphlets or broadsides. They often had highly sensational content. It was between 1605 and 1610 that publications with topical information began appearing on a fairly regular basis. These publications appeared first in Europe, and were the first true newspapers. In the English – speaking world, the earliest predecessors of the newspaper were ‘corantos’, small news pamphlets produced only when some event worthy of notice occurred. The first successively published title was ‘The Weekly News’ of 1622.
electromechanical or electronic. Like the light bulb and the telephone, the insights and inventions of a number of people eventually produced the first commercially successful typewriters. Henry Mill, Pellegrino Turri and William Austin Burt all experimented with different types of ‘writing machines’. But these writing machines were bulky, and much slower than writing by hand. Some of these typewriters were made of wood, some were made of wood and knives and some even looked like pin cushions! The first typewriter to be commercially successful was invented in 1867 by Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule. However, they sold the patent for $12,000 to Dens more and Yost, who made an agreement with E. Remington and Sons, a manufacture of sewing machines. Remington started production of their first typewriter on March 1, 1873, in Ilion, New York. Another early typewriter manufacturer was Underwood. Typewriters have come a long way since then. The first electric typewriter was made in 1902. Electrical typewriter designs removed the direct mechanical connection between the keys and the element that struck the paper. IBM and Remington Rand electric typewriters were the leading models in the field. The final major development of the typewriter was the ‘electronic’ typewriter. It relied on integrated circuits and multiple electromechanical components. Today of course, the typewriter is being replaced by the computer.Did you know that the famous author Mark Twain enjoyed experimenting with new inventions, and that he was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to his publisher?
since the 16th century, has been used since Greek and Roman times. One of the most widely known forms of shorthand is the Pitman method, developed by Isaac Pitman in 1837. This system, gradually improved over time, has been adapted for many different languages. The system was very popular with secretaries, reporters and writers in the UK and USA, till the invention of pocket tape recorders, which proved more useful for recording speech. Another popular shorthand system is that of Gregg’s shorthand system, developed by John Robert Gregg in 1888.
printing since the development of moveable type 400 years earlier.Born in Germany, Mergenthaler was trained as a watch and clockmaker. He arrived in Baltimore in 1872, and took a job in a machine shop, eventually working his way up into a partnership. At the age of 32, he designed and built his first practical printing machine. With it, the two operations of setting and casting type in leaden lines were performed simply by touching the keys of a board similar to the keyboard of a typewriter Mergenthaler’s machine enabled one operator to be machinist, type-setter, justifier, type-founder, and type-distributor. His invention was called the ‘Linotype’. Since the machine was first used in 1886 by the New York Tribune, great improvements on its design have been made. Probably more than 1,500 separate patents have been taken out in connection with it!
of pear or jujube wood. The text of a page was first written out by hand in ink. It was then laid face down on the block, and the block was cut with a mallet and chisel so that the letters stood out in relief and in reverse.The printer next spread ink over the block, and pressed the block onto paper, so that the text appeared the right way around. You will agree that this process of printing was quite time consuming indeed!
ago in China, it was not adapted for use with European scripts until the 15th century. The Chinese, however, were adept at printing scrolls and books using wooden blocks with whole pages of characters carved into them. In the west, the pioneer of printing was a German goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg who invented a moveable type 557 years ago. This made it possible to print books much more quickly and cheaply.
they are today. All books were in the form of manuscripts that were beautifully written and illustrated by hand. These books were mostly religious books, which were carefully written by monks in elaborate and sometimes decorative hand-writing. There were also practical books that were useful in everyday life, like books on herbs and there healing properties. The ink for these manuscripts books was made from lampblack mixed with gum. The colours for the drawings were obtained from ground up minerals and metals. The books were written on almost any kind of material…thin strips of tree bark and bamboo, silk, palm leaves, and of course paper and parchment. The books were often rolled into scrolls, or folded like a concertina, while palm leaves were strong together to form a book.The most expensive materials used for manuscript books were gold for decoration and fine parchment for writing. Did you know that sometimes a whole flock of sheep was needed for the parchment to write a book?
different from pictograms in that an alphabet consists of different letters, with each letter representing a sound in a language. Words are made of different letters put together.An alphabet is the quickest and most efficient way to write. Just imagine… with only 26 letters you can write all the words in the English language! Of course, different languages have their own alphabets. The Greek alphabet is different from the Hebrew alphabet, just as the Hindi alphabet is different from the Malayalam one! The Roman alphabet, which is widely used to this day, was derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets. The letters of an alphabet are written in different ways in different languages too. Some are round, while some have square, or even triangular shapes. With some alphabets, the words and sentences are written from left to right, while, with others, they are written from right to left![custom_search_and_filter]