In the early 1440s, German craftsman Johannes Gutenberg introduced the printing press which revolutionized the way books were produced. Prior to this invention, books were extremely expensive to produce and only available for the elite. With the printing press, that changed. Books could be produced much more quickly and at a much lower cost. This had the first-order effect of making them more widely available to people, which, in turn, led to a second-order effect - an explosion of knowledge and ideas. One of the people who was influenced by this new availability of knowledge was Martin Luther. He read a copy of the Bible for himself and had a revelation that people could connect with God through faith alone, without needing to rely on middlemen or the infrastructure of the Church. The idea that people could acquire knowledge and understanding without gatekeepers was a natural extension of this concept. With books more widely available, people could acquire their own personal copies and interpret the meaning for themselves. This also meant that people from all walks of life could access specialized information about new technologies, business strategies, and financial opportunities, which ultimately had the third-order effect of driving innovation and economic growth, first in Europe, then to the rest of the world.