618

Events in 618 2

• 618 – 907 Tang Dynasty — China's cosmopolitan golden age Poetry, silk, Buddhism and the world's largest empire The Tang dynasty is widely considered China's cultural peak. Its capital Chang'an (modern Xi'an) was the world's largest city with over a million inhabitants, cosmopolitan with merchants, monks and diplomats from across Asia. The Tang produced China's greatest poets — Li Bai and Du Fu — and saw Buddhism flourish. Woodblock printing was invented. China's civil service examination system was refined into the model used for 1,300 years.
• 618 – 907 Woodblock printing invented in China Reproducing text at scale — precursor to Gutenberg During the Tang dynasty, Chinese craftsmen developed woodblock printing — carving an entire page of text and images into a wooden block, inking it and pressing paper against it. The world's oldest dated printed book, the Diamond Sutra (868 AD), was produced using this technique. It was brought to Europe via the Silk Road, where it inspired Gutenberg's movable type press six centuries later.