25. Johannes Gutenberg
The world as we know it would not exist without Johannes Gutenberg. Prior to his invention of the Gutenberg Press, books had to be painstakingly written by hand. They were prohibitively expensive, so only a few wealthy people owned them. The Gutenberg Press used moveable type to enable mass production of print materials. The first mass-produced book was the Bible, and things like newspapers followed it. His invention helped spark the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation.
