The first books printed in the Philippines

THE first book printed in the United States was The Whole Booke of Psalmes by Stephen Daye, the first printer in Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1640. There are only 11 extant copies of this book; only five of which are complete. In Finland, the first printing press started working in the premises of the Royal Academy of Abo (Turku) in 1642.

The first book was a dissertation in Latin by Michael Wexionius, titled De prudentia turn legislatoria turn politica seu civili (About the wisdom that is necessary for legislators and statesmen), a work that is probably as necessary now as then. Canada did not have a printing press until 1752. It was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the oldest printed item was not a book, but copies of the first newspaper, the Halifax Gazette. In Australia, the oldest printed item is a playbill, advertising a performance at the theater in Sydney. It was printed by convict George Hughes, operator of Australia’s first printing press, in October 1796. This apparently meaningless item is of so much importance for Australians that it was added to the Unesco Australian Memory of the World Register in 2011.