Taverns were places where people gathered to drink alcohol, to be served food, to meet friends and to exchange views.

Protestant Reformation was a 16th century movement to reform the Catholic Church dominated by Rome. Martin Luther was one of the main Protestant reformers. Several traditions of anti-Catholic Christianity developed out of the movement.

As primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century, children became an important category of readers.

Printers and publishers developed new strategies to sell their products. Important novels were serialised, which led to a new way of writing novels. It is not an innovation of the20th century.

Hindi printing began from the 1870s it is a large segment was devoted to women’s education, widow remarriage and the national movement.

Bengal Gazette was a weekly English magazine edited by James Hickey from 1780, described as a commercial paper open to all, and influenced by none.

Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote and published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938 to show the links between caste and class exploitation.

Edo was the ancient name of Tokyo. In the late eighteenth century, the flourishing urban circles at Edo (later to be known as Tokyo), and illustrated collections of paintings.

Jyotiba Phule, the Maratha pioneer of ‘low caste’ protest movements, wrote about the injustices of the caste system in his Gulamgiri (1871).

The first printing press in Europe is invented by Johann Gutenberg in 1448. The first book he printed was the Bible. About 180 copies were printed at that time.