I think what stood out most to me in this lecture was how one invention can have such seismic impacts on all of humanity. Gutenberg invented the first printing press in 1440 in Germany. A moveable type press could produce far more copies than the pre-existing method of writing by hand. This revolutionised the spread of information throughout all societal classes. Prior to the printing press, the Church controlled all of the spread and publication of information and it was mainly biblical scripture was the only publications in peoples homes. However, after the invention of the printing press, printing became cheaper and more accessible which meant more people with differing ideas to the church could publish information. This paved the way for an era of enlightenment where society broke free from the chains of censorship placed on them by the Church. I find it fascinating that new information can cause a mass shift in thinking. It also forced people to learn to read. This decreased the gap between a once illiterate lower class and a well educated upperclass. It also fuelled the demise of Latin as a key component in publication and European languages became increasingly popular in publishing.