VIDEO SUMMARY
A Matter of Fact with James Burke

1. Modern farming using computers. Ancient farming. Born and raised in the same place, never traveled more than a seven mile radius ,church the center of life.
2. Court: Hearing evidence. Old folks were a living record.
3. Memory device: Astronomy, Music, Arithmetic, Grammar, Geometry, Logic and Rhetoric.
4. The Troubadors: News and stories, memory through rhyme. Auditing.
5. Writing: Writing as a religious and mystical act. No filing system.
6. The Black Death, he rise of the cities, Freedom Laws.
7. The Invention of Paper. Manuscript factories. Selling indulgences.
8. Guttenberg: standard interchangeable type faces.(1490)
9. Martin Luther nails up his 95 Theses on Oct. 31, 1517 at Wartenburg.
10. The Information Revolution 1500 to 1600. Wood block drawings give Science a big boost.
11. Books fixed the language! Prose took over facts, you didn't need rhyme to remember anymore.
12. The rise of local language and the decline of Latin.