Welcome to Call to Decision 

 American Minute with Bill Federer

 August 24

 Unaware of printing technology in China and Korea, Johannes Gutenberg
 invented the Western world's first moveable type printing press.

 His masterpiece, the Gutenberg Bible, was printed AUGUST 24, 1455.

 No longer copied by hand and chained to pulpits, Bibles were mass
 produced.

 Unfortunately his business partner sued and took his rights.

 Gutenberg, whose name means "beautiful mountain," wrote:

 "Let us break the seal which seals up holy things and give wings to
 Truth in order that she may win every soul that comes into the world."


 In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1831, book 5, Victor Hugo wrote:

 "The 15th century everything changes. Human thought discovers a mode
 of perpetuating itself... Gutenberg's letters of lead...supersede
 Orpheus's letters of stone...

 The invention of printing is the greatest event in history. It is the
 mother of revolution."

 Victor Hugo continued:

 "Whether it be Providence or Fate, Gutenberg is the precursor of
 Luther."

 In A Tramp Abroad, 1880, Mark Twain wrote:

 "We made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main...I would have liked
 to visit the birthplace of Gutenberg, but...no memorandum of the house
 has been kept."

 On August 12, 1993, at Denver's Regis University, Pope John Paul II
 gave a Gutenberg Bible to President Bill Clinton.