The Portuguese were the first colonialists to establish sugar cane plantations on islands off the coast of Africa. The first cane plantations were established on the islands of Madiera and Sao Tomes. Sao Tomes was known as the largest sugar cane producer in the world and its economy grew to be one of the largest in the world
. Because sugar cane farming was and still is, a labor-intensive process, the Portuguese began importing large numbers of African slaves to the island of Sao Tomes.<span>
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The printing press originated in Germany. It first took part in allowing for monasteries to copy bibles on a large scale as copies used to be made elegantly by hand. The former process that produced copies of books were too expensive for people of average wealth to afford. The printing press allowed more people to afford books due their "mass" production. This in turn increased literacy rates, since more people could now afford books and wished to read the bible and other popular works. Later on the printing press contributed to the formation of the United States of America as it allowed for important intellectuals to rapidly spread information about opposition to Britain. One such piece mass produced that is given some credit for the most immediate cause to the Revolution was Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Later on the printing press also became important as newspapers and magazines became popular along with yellow journalism which was mass produced due to the printing press. Basically throughout history it was the first form of social media which plagued society with information that caused wars and spread information rapidly from new scientific advancements and such. In fact the printing press mass producing journals, newspaper, and magazines can be directly related to the increase in world literacy, Revolutionary War, Spanish American War, WW1, WW2, and many many more events
