What is the single most important invention in European history?

The Bible managed to spread pretty well before Gutenberg. And a bunch of other handwritten literature, too, as well as scientific knowledge and philosophical works. The spread may have been slower, but I don't see any reason to think it would've been forgotten...so much else wasn't. Any scientist or mathemetician worth his/her salt would've preserved and propagated it. It needn't have been on the public's bestsellers list. As long as the scientists had it...

Another candidate for most major invention or at least second, third, or fourth place:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermill

The humble watermill might have been the thing which put Europe over the top in dealing with slammites and the like prior to and after Lepanto. I.e. no real way to have a watermill out in the deserts where most slammites live or to produce the kinds of things (including weapons) which Europeans started producing in the late middle ages, several centuries before the steam engine.

The first known watermills were found in Mesopotamia at about 1200 BC (and later in India and elsewhere in Arabia).

The first mentioning of a water mill in Europe is by the Greek epigrammatist Antipater of Thessalonica, 1st century BC.

I'd say the essential lesson of this thead is that there is nothing new under the sun.

What seems to be the key sentence in the wiki article:



Like I mentioned, that might have been a main key to the rise of Europe vis a vis the muslim world.

From your source:

Like I mentioned before, you have no idea of history. And obviously, you're not responding to the thread here.

Walter, I had the opportunity to visit Thessaloniki when I did a tour of the Balkans to trace Alexander the Great's history; to visit his birthplace and his father's tomb. That tour was long gone from my memory bank until I read your post.

Watch your language, best sellers were important too.

Not dissing bestsellers, buy how often do books on cutting-edge mathematics make the list?

the correct answer is still Iron Bloom