National Handwriting Day was started to re-introduce one’s self to a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. According to the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association, it is a chance for all to re-explore the purity and power of handwriting.
National Handwriting Day was established by the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association in 1977. Their motive is to promote the consumption of pens, pencils and writing paper. January 23rd was chosen as this is the birthday of John Hancock. John Hancock was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence.
- Cuneiform, the Sumerian writing system that emerged from Mesopotamia 5000 years ago, was usually etched into clay tablets that were often only a few inches wide.
- After the fall of the Roman Empire, different scripts developed regionally as writers embellished and tweaked existing systems to create their own styles. However, this made books a little hard to read for those not educated in that exact script. All books were written in Latin, but the letters were so different that many scribes couldn’t read writing from other regions.
- The first printed books were designed to look a whole lot like the manuscripts of that day, so as not to shock people with newfangled design. Johannes Gutenberg and his hired craftsmen hand-carved an elaborate Gothic script into 290 unique characters for the printing press, allowing the printer to recreate every letter in upper- and lowercase, as well as punctuation, so that the type looked just like what a scribe would make. The first letters of every section were even red, just like manuscript style dictated.
- One of the oldest pieces of handwriting stored at the British Museum is a list of beer rations allocated to building workers (they obviously had their priorities right)! You can see a photograph of the tablet right .
- QUIZ: Can you guess what 97 per cent of people write when they are trying out a new pen for the first time?! Scroll down for the answer . . .
- According to the history books U.S. president James Garfield was super talented when it came to handwriting! As well as being ambidextrous Garfield could apparently write in Greek with one hand whilst writing in Latin with the other! Now that is certainly one way to impress your mates down the pub!
- Handwriting enthusiast, Justin Avery, creator of BackPocket Notebooks) told us this unusual fact about the artist Leonardo da Vinci . . .“Leonardo da Vinci used to write most of his stuff in mirror handwriting, unless it needed to be read by others.” This fact is backed up by this BBC research that says that Da Vinci wrote in a ‘left handed mirror script’. This means he wrote everything backwards, you should try it, it is really tricky!
- ANSWER: their name…
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