#10 Choe Yun-ui

Metal Type Printing Press – 1234-1240

It is Choe Yun-ui and not Johannes Gutenberg who came up with first movable metal type printer. Choe Yun-ui, a civil servant with the responsibility for printing the Sangjeong Gogeum Yemun, a massive collection of historical documents and legal codes, came up with the printing technology almost 200 hundred years before Gutenberg did.

If that is the case then why did Choe Yun-ui did not get the recognition to be the first person to invent a movable metal type printers. The reason could be credited set of problems. The type being used was Chinese script and amounted to thousands of characters. Thought the invention did help reduce printing work, it was still arduous. It wasn’t until the 1440s and the introduction of the Hangul alphabet that the country had a writing system that would work efficiently with the printing press. And to add to the complication is that the Korea, Choe Yun-yi lived in, was hemmed in by China on one side and Japan on the other, and was isolated from the West. By then Europeans took it for granted that they ruled the planet, and weren’t too impressed by what an Oriental country had invented six hundred years ago.

Read Also: Pune Girl's Doodle Adores Google's Homepage On Children's Day and 10 Gmail Features You Don't Know