Word: offing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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11th century Movable type was developed in China by the year 1048 and the metal variety in Korea by 1403. However, it was impractical for the ideographs both used (as many as 400,000 characters). Rubbing off wood blocks and stone, practiced since the 7th century, was the preferred technology...
13th century Italy gets paper Finally Europe had a cheap alternative to vellum and parchment. (It took the skins of 80 lambs to create a 200-page parchment manuscript.)
1300s Block printing arrived in Europe, perhaps brought by merchants and bureaucrats of the expanding Mongol Empire. And paper was available for use.
1591 Those rotten journalists A Chinese border official complained of irresponsible "news-bureau entrepreneurs" who give no consideration to "matters of [national] emergency."
1776 Thomas Paine His printed pamphlet Common Sense would inspire the Declaration of Independence; his American Crisis rallied Washington's troops at Valley Forge.