Part EIGHT = Shakespeare and other bits.

Shakespeare and other bits.

William Shakespeare was influenced by the art of the Renaissance and their way of story telling. The Globe Theatre started to performed plays to the masses, just as it was in Aristotle's time in the great Amphitheatres.

The theatres brought the classes together for the first time, as Royalty and peasants watched the same plays, whilst meant them both being affected by the same emotions being played out on the stage.

In 1712 came the steam engine with Britain being at the height of innovation. The engine became very important and the industrial revolution totally relied on steam to power it's many powerful machines.

Until this time, the UK had been importing a lot of goods from China but the UK had a good supply of coal to power the steam driven machines. Very soon the import and export ratio changed, as the UK began to export more products.

Steam may well not drive as much machinery as it did back then, but it is still used in the production of electricity, which now provides us with energy. Harnessing electricity for our use was first developed circa 1800 by Thomas Edison.


Following on from this came the oldest surviving photo in 1826, so there may well have been many more before this one. This picture was by French photographer Joseph Nicéphore Niépce; following after this and surprisingly not before, came the camera in 1840.
 
In 1833 came the first zoetrope, a tabletop invention that gave the impression of movement by spinning a series of static images, which were then viewed through slits.

Previous to these inventions, paintings took weeks to months to produce, to obtain the dark, light and perspective that a camera and a photograph could now give. Artists became afraid of this new contraption, the camera.

Communication started to grow and in the early 1800's, typewriters were invented, followed by Morse code and telegraphy. In 1870, telephone and mass communication started. Initially telephone lines were very local but very quickly international calls could soon be made. It totally changed how the world communicated but at the same time made the world a much smaller place.

The terms 'media' and 'press' that we take for granted today, first appeared at the end of the 18th century but it seems uncertain by whom it was was quoted.