- 2600 BC: Some of the oldest known writings from Sumeria come from around this time****
- 2000 BC: The Phoenicians create one of the first written languages, but it consists only of consonants (note: they did not have Wheel of Fortune back then)
- 200 BC: Some of the first punctuation marks are used in Aristophanes' plays
- 48 BC: The Library of Alexandria burns in Egypt
- 900 AD: Medieval scribes make reading much easier by inventing lowercase letters and placing spaces in between words
- 1450: Printing press was invented by Gutenberg in Germany
- 1570: English educator and grammarian John Hart publishes one of the first books on phonics, associating each letter with a unique sound
- 1731: Benjamin Franklin and friends open the first U.S. public library in Philadelphia
- 1824: Louis Braille invents his method of reading for the blind
- 1908: Edmund Burke Huey releases The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading, the first comprehensive report on the scientific study of reading
- 1917: Reading as Reasoning by American psychologist Edward Thorndike is one of the first works to answer the question of what reading is and its significance
- 1955: Why Johnny Can't Read is published by Rudolf Flesch; it lead a major movement back to phonics-based reading education in American classrooms
- 1957: Dr. Seuss published The Cat in the Hat; widely viewed as one of the first enjoyable children’s books that actually made reading fun for kids
- 1964: The United States Office of Education calls the 1960’s the ‘Decade of Innovations in Teaching Reading’
- 1999: Reading Excellence Act of 1999 passed in the United States, granting government funding to reading education in high-poverty school districts
- 2007: Amazon releases the first Kindle e-reader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Z5HNRC_Ic