In Chinese writing, you had to have a very large number of characters, each individually carved to set in the press. So even though they invented movable type, it actually was never as useful as ...

Many people worldwide are quick to credit Germany's Johannes Gutenberg with the invention of movable type printing, but how many know about the pioneering work of Bi Sheng from ancient China? This ...

A bronze Chinese cannon cast in 1332 is the oldest ... Bi Sheng of the Northern Song Dynasty invented movable type printing in the 1040s, which ushered in a major revolution in the history of ...

. But the most important part of his invention was actually moveable type. Before Gutenberg, the closest Europe had to printing was the woodblock. The woodblock was a piece of wood with all the ...