![]() In 1690, Publick Occurrences was published in Boston. About this time, the first newspaper appeared in that hotbed of insurrection, the American colonies. In fact, the rule of thumb in such cases was "the greater the truth, the greater the libel." If criticism were based on fact, the logic went, there was an even greater possibility that it could undermine the existing order. The government simply turned to enforcing its will through libel laws, which forbade criticism of the government, true or not. By 1695, licensing the press had become so unpopular in England that Parliament abolished it. Galileo, too, had been arguing for truth, advocating a separation of science and religion. Just 10 years earlier, the Gazette de France had carried reports of Galileo Galilei's heresy trial. Milton's pamphlet was based on the notion that reason and fact could be used to question tradition and challenge supposed "truth." It was a radical idea that gained popularity among Europe's educated people, thanks in large part to newspapers. The power to license is, of course, the power to deny a license. "Truth," Milton wrote, "needs no licensing to make her victorious." Unfortunately, Milton didn't help the cause when he later took over licensing printers for the government under England's Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. His was the first significant argument for freedom of the press. The Star Chamber was abolished in 1641, and the poet John Milton, emboldened by the resulting power vacuum, published "Areopagitica," his polemic against censorship, in 1644. The first serious challenge to this order came during the English Civil War in the 1640s when King Charles I and his Cavaliers warred against the insurgent Long Parliament. In England, the notorious Star Chamber, an often secret, non-jury tribunal, enforced the royal line with a heavy hand, ordering, for example, the execution of William Carter in 1584 for publishing pro-Catholic pamphlets. Europe's monarchs, fearing for their own prerogative, kept a sharp eye on printers, requiring them to obtain official license. Thanks to the printing press, copies of the theses and news of its posting circulated widely in Europe, eventually forcing a rift in the church and ending its long religious supremacy. In 1517, Martin Luther rocked the Roman Catholic Church with his "95 Theses," in which he decried the clergy's abuses of power. The power of the press to foment trouble had been well established. Within a few decades, newspapers could be found in all the major cities of Europe, from Venice to London. They reported on a variety of current events to a broad public audience. They distinguished themselves from other printed material by being published on a regular basis. The first publications that could be called "newspapers" appeared in Strasbourg and in Wolfenbuttel in Germany in 1609. Gutenberg's invention was a simple device, but it launched a revolution marked by repeated advances in technology and, as a result, a popularization of the ideals of liberty and freedom of information exchange. In the 50 years after Gutenberg started printing, an estimated 500,000 books were in circulation, printed on about 1,000 presses across the continent. ![]() ![]() Much of what is known about his life comes from lawsuits filed by business partners eager to reap profits sure to be had by anyone who could satisfy the newly created demand for knowledge and news. Johann Gutenberg, inventor of Europe's first printing press that used movable type, died penniless and blind in 1468. ![]()
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