461: Caxton Printing Mar 13, 2016

Caxton was merchant, diplomat, and writer, but is most famous for printing. He introduced a printing press into England in 1476, and in 1477, printed the first book in English, later becoming a bookseller. Most of the books which he printed were in English, and he translated and edited work himself, such as Aesop's Fables. Though he was focused on translating in the most linguistically exact way possible, demand combined with his poor translating-skills led to adoption of lots of French words into English and many misunderstandings. Nevertheless, the works that Caxton was charged to print were in many dialects, and as a result, his efforts to standardize English–if only regionally–led to a regularization of syntax and inflection, as well as an increase of written history.

For more on this, see yesterday's post.