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We used to know how to get together and really let our hair down. Then, in the early 1600s, a mass epidemic of depression broke out - and we've been living with it ever since. Something went wrong, but what?
>Something was happening, from about 1600 on, to make melancholy a major concern of the reading public, and the simplest explanation is that there was more melancholy around to be concerned about.
Well, something that might have been happening was [the creation of a reading public.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Spread-of...) It's not like there was a NYT Bestseller's list for 1580 and another for 1600 in which "depression" showed a statistical increase. Movable type didn't even hit England until 1500. Makes the whole article somewhat facetious, in my opinion.
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The evidence does seem thin. That is a very nice gif, but it should include Korea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_typography_in_East_A...