When Was the First E-Book Created?

Michael Hart, a student at the University of Illinois, typed the U.S. Declaration of Independence into a computer on July 4, 1971, creating what is considered the first e-book. This became the founding document of Project Gutenberg, which Hart established to make literary works freely available in digital format. The original file was just 5 kilobytes. Hart chose the Declaration because it was a short, iconic text in the public domain. Project Gutenberg has since digitized over 70,000 books. The commercial e-book market exploded after Amazon launched the Kindle in 2007, and by 2023, e-books accounted for roughly 20% of total book sales in the United States.