What is the history of Serif fonts and sans-serif fonts?

Fonts came to be with the print press, which is generally accepted to have come about in 1450 (earlier versions existed, but this was the first that could properly be defined as such). The press attempted to mimic the handwriting of the time, resulting in cursive text people used at the time. This was gradually refined over and over in order to save on both space and ink, the letters became simpler and smaller. This resulted in the Serif fonts, which still had the serif at the time. The serifs were subsequently removed, to once again save on ink, and thus the Sans-serif fonts came about.