History of Censorship Timeline

First famous case of public censorship. Socrates was executed because of his influence he was having over the youth of Rome.

Minister Li Si and Emperor Qin Shi Huang of China ordered the destruction of many history and philosophy books during the year of 213 B.C. The Emperor wanted people after him to believe that the world started with his rein. These destructive acts lead to a revolt in China, the subsequent destruction of the remaining philosophical and historical documents, and subsequently the ruin of Chinese culture. The Chinese had to rebuild what defined them as a people in the decades and centuries after.

The burning of the Library of Alexandria in Egypt between 50 B.C. and A.D. 700 is one of the most important instances of censorship even today. Perhaps a mistake, the fire set in the library destroyed over 40,000 manuscripts. Many of these were only copies and the valuable information they held is forever lost.

Fray Diego de Landa, a Spaniard acting bishop of the Yucatan, burned many of the Maya’s sacred books in 1562 because they conflicted with the Christian ideology he was trying to teach them.

Martin Luther had translated the Catholic bible into German hoping that the people of German would be able to read that bible themselves. The Catholic Church’s act of censorship led to the formation of the Lutheran Church.

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, published in1884, caused quite a stir. It was tossed out of the collection of numerous libraries in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s due to the idea that is set a bad example for youth who may read it. It is still a frequent target of challenges and bans.

Cambridge’s Trinity College banned the book from its library even though Darwin was one of its own graduates. From its publication to present day, Darwin’s book about his theory of evolution has been the target of numerous challenges and censorship cases.

In 1842, the director of the Paris school for the blind ordered that all book written in Braille be burned. He apparently did not want the students of the school to be reading books on their own. Fortunately not all of the employees of the school agreed with his idea and secretly used the coded writing anyway. Braille was eventually restored at the school. Without the few who had defied the new director’s orders Braille would be lost today and the blind would not have nearly the amount of independent access to information that they enjoy today.