When was the first keyboard invented?

Although the English inventor Henry Mill patented the first typewriter in 1714, the American publisher Christopher Latham Sholes invented the modern keyboard in 1868. The Remington Typewriter Company mass-produced Sholes' version of the typewriter and made it commercially successful.

Henry Mill has received credit for patenting the typewriter, but he never produced a working prototype. Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri produced a typewriter for a blind friend in 1808. Although letters have been recovered that proved Turri's machine worked, the actual typewriter has never been seen. Sholes' version of the typewriter uses the QWERTY keyboard configuration, which is now standard throughout the world.