The prominence of presses and public publications led to better communication, increased information and enhanced education. Scientists — particularly in botany and astronomy — benefitted from shared scholarship. Anxious audiences awaited new tales and new maps from explorers discovering faraway lands and the latest literary works from a burgeoning array of writers.

Bibles and other such publications in the public's hands meant the Catholic Church no longer controlled the writing, reading and collecting of religious materials, helping the Protestant Reformation of Luther, Calvin and others take root in the mid-1500s.

Publications in local languages rather than the dominant Latin resulted in increased nationalism and the creation of new kingdoms and countries.

Such was the case with the British colonies in America and the ensuing American Revolution and formation of the United States. The colonies' first newspaper, Publick Occurrences, started in 1690, with the continent's first paper mills soon to follow and a proliferation of printers and newspapers through the 1700s.

The era's dilemma for printers was whether to be a "loyalist" and follow the British government's licensing and stamp-act decrees or to be part of a patriot press promoting independence. Both sides faced pressure and economic and physical threats.

Publications helped connect the 13 distinct colonies with the sharing of information and ideas, not only through newspapers — such as the Pennsylvania Gazette from printer-statesman Benjamin Franklin — but also tracts like "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine and others penned by revolutionaries such as James Otis and John Dickinson.

The era's greatest example of the power of disseminating printed information came as copies of the Declaration of Independence — made both by hand and by press — were read publicly and printed in newspapers across the 13 colonies.

Printing presses played a major role in Utah's early years —also prominently in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints several decades before the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

The Book of Mormon ?— a historical, sacred record of ancient American inhabitants, written on golden plates and translated by Joseph Smith — was first published in 1829-30 by E.B. Grandin in Palmyra, N.Y., his Peter Smith Press providing then-state-of-the-art printing in the frontiers of western New York.

Regarded by the church as holy scripture, the book's name gave the church's faithful its early "Mormon" nickname that — for bitter or for better — has endured for nearly two centuries.