istoryworld
Events relating to writing
Writing is developed, at Sumer, as cuneiform script on clay tablets
The Egyptian hieroglyphic script develops at much the same time as the Sumerian cuneiform
The invention of writing marks the transition, in academic terms, from prehistory to history
An easily portable writing surface is developed, from the papyrus plant of the Nile
The delicate seals of the Indus civilization are in a script as yet undeciphered
The Chinese develop a form of scroll, made of strips of bamboo threaded together and rolled up like a wooden blind
The earliest known example of Arabic writing is on an inscribed column at Tema, in northwest Arabia
Livy begins writing and publishing his History of Rome, a task which will occupy him for forty years
Marcus Aurelius is rare among emperors in writing twelve books of philosophical Meditations
The distinction between capital and lower-case emerges in the scriptoria of the Irish monasteries
Thonmi Sambhota, a student of Sanskrit, devises a way of writing Tibetan and produces treatises on Tibetan grammar
John Wycliffe, writing mainly in Oxford, is critical of the contemporary church and can find no basis for the pope's authority
Luther's writings are burnt in Rome by order of the pope
A book to teach good handwriting is published by Gianfrancesco Cresci, with examples engraved on copper plates
The writings of Matteo Ricci introduce Kung Fu Tzu to Europe under a Latin version of his name - Confucius
Samuel Pepys ends his diary, after only writing it for nine years
Samuel Taylor Coleridge says that while writing Kubla Khan he is interrupted by 'a person on business from Porlock'
In the cramped sitting room that she shares as a study with Lewes, Marian Evans begins writing her first novel, Adam Bede
Samuel Clemens, writing under the pseudonym Mark Twain, has immediate success with The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County