Who invented the printing press and describe the impact on life that it made?

Presume you want the mechanical printing press - and not the far earlier manual presses (used by the Romans around 100AD for printing on cloth - basically adapted from olive and fruit presses that had been used for cenuaries already - but without interchangeable lettering etc).

The text book answer has to be: Johannes Gutenberg in 1440's (German). Although there have been a number o earlier German models discovered, I believe it was the first to have interchangeable letters allowing for settign the page quickly.

The impact at the time was quite large - before then it took ten years to copy a single Bible - now onr could be printed in a few weeks. It did a lot to spread both Rome's power and religious dogma aswell as giving cause for educated upper classes (at last something to read!) - literacy rose as a direct result.

Today it is looked on as one of the most significant inventions of mankind - up there with the wheel, steel and transisters.