*Circa 100 BCE: The first books are bound in India. Religious sutras were copied onto palm leaves, which were split, dried, rubbed with ink and bound with twine.
*Circa 150CE: The decline of the scroll begins. The process was gradual, lasting for another 300 years for the rolled manuscript to disappear from use.
*Circa 400CE: Crafting of leather-bound books appears.
*Circa 550CE: Metal book covers appear.
*1741-1753: Christoph Ernst Prediger writes the first exhaustive manual on book binding. The work was published in four separate volumes, covering everything from cost of materials and technique to apprenticeship regulations.
*1810-1820: British publishers begin using cloth as a binding material.
*Circa 1830: Case bindings that allowed mechanized stamping of the covers and spines were designed. This was the first significant step to automating the process of book binding.
*1857: The first flap-style dust jackets are used in England.