Before 5000 BC- Cave paintings and inscriptions carved onto rocks left records for succeeding generations.
About 4000 BC-The earliest book there is references of is a Chaldean account of the Flood. This story was inscribed on a clay tablet.
About 2000 BC The papyrus, family Cyperaceae; species Cyperus papyrus(Gk. papuros)(sheets made from the pith or stem of the papyrus plant, which is a water plant, native to S. Europe, N Africa, and the Middle East, and used by the ancient Egyptians to make paper-like writing material.
190 BC- parchment, which was made from animal skins, began to be used. The Greeks brought together large libraries Ephesus and Pergamun, in what is today Turkey, and in Alexandria.
105 AD- The Chinese invented paper. The word “paper” derives from PAPYRUS. The modern process of manufacture started in China and consists of reducing wood fiber, straw, rags, or grasses to a pulp by the action of an ALKALI, such as CAUSTIC SODA (sodium Hydroxide). The non-cellulose material is then extracted and the residue is bleached. After that the pulp is made into thin sheets and dried.
1100 AD- The Chinese invented a type of movable printing press, which was the greatest human invention in the intellectual history of the human race.
1455 AD- The western world gives credit to Gutenberg, who printed his 42-line Bible from movable type on a printing press.
1665 AD- The first scientific journals appeared, when coincidentally two different journals commenced publication, the Journal des Scavans in France and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.