The oldest dated printed book, China's Diamond Sutra of 868, is almost 600 years older than the Gutenberg Bible.

868 · 1450 · apart: 582 years

◍ Show on the globe

The events

• The Diamond Sutra is printed868 · Dunhuang. In China a woodblock-printed scroll of the Diamond Sutra was produced — the oldest surviving dated printed book. It was found in 1900 in a sealed cave of the Mogao Grottoes near Dunhuang.
• Gutenberg's printing pressc. 1450 · Mainz. In Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg developed printing with movable metal type on a press. His Bible appeared around 1455; printing made books cheap and accelerated the spread of knowledge, the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution.

9th century · 15th century

More amazing facts

• 794 · 1868 Kyoto (Heian-kyō) was Japan's capital for more than 1,000 years — from 794 until the emperor moved to Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration.
• 800 When Charlemagne was crowned emperor in 800, Borobudur — the world's largest Buddhist temple — was being built on Java.
• 859 · 1096 Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, the world's oldest operating place of learning, was founded by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri, 237 years before teaching began at Oxford.
• 862 · 863 According to the chronicle, the Varangians were invited to Rus' in 862, and in 863 Cyril and Methodius set out for Moravia with a Slavic alphabet.
• 987 · 988 Rus was baptised in 988, a year after Hugh Capet became King of France.
• 988 · 1021 Thirty-three years after the Christianization of Rus', Vikings were cutting wood in Newfoundland — tree rings date it precisely to 1021.

All amazing facts (126) →