Movable type was invented 400 years before Gutenberg — in clay.

1040 · 1450 · apart: 410 years

In the 1040s the Chinese commoner Bi Sheng cut characters into sticky clay and baked them hard, as the scholar Shen Kuo recorded.

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays1088 · Zhenjiang, China. In retirement the scholar-official Shen Kuo wrote down everything he knew, including the first description of the magnetic compass and the observation that the needle does not point exactly north — plus the story of the commoner Bi Sheng, who invented movable type of baked clay in the 1040s.

11th century · 15th century

More amazing facts

• 1024 · 1661 China had government paper money 637 years before Europe's first banknotes.
• 1040 · 1057 · 1606 The real Macbeth ruled Scotland for 17 years, secure enough to go on pilgrimage to Rome in 1050, where he scattered money to the poor 'like seed'. Shakespeare made him a villain five and a half centuries later.
• 1045 · 1051 Yaroslav the Wise is called the 'father-in-law of Europe': three of his daughters became queens.
• 1050 · 1687 The marble lion outside Venice's Arsenal is covered in Viking runes.
• 1051 · 1060 A queen of France signed her name in Cyrillic.
• 1054 In July 1054, Chinese astronomers saw a new star; 12 days later came the schism in Constantinople.

All amazing facts (1058) →