This is a tricky question because one might argue what defines a
copy.

We know the Chinese printed sheets from a single carved block that
produced an entire page well over a thousand years ago. The Koreans
had movable type about 1000 years ago.

But if we discount printing . . .

My vote goes to a device called a “polygraph” invented around 1803
by English-born John Isaac Hawkins. Thomas Jefferson had one of
Hawkins’ polygraphs and this is why we have copies of so many of
Jefferson’s letters. (Some falsely state that Jefferson was the
original inventor of the polygraph.) The device relies on the
pantograph principle and it can make several copies at one time,
while the writer wrote the original. See the web source below for
a picture of the device.

You can see Jefferson’s copying device at Monticello.

During WWII a Japanese - American girl named Ikuko Toguri broadcast messages from Tokyo to American troops in the South Pacific. The intent was to lower the morale of US troops.

She was actually born in Los Angeles on July 4, 1916 and went by the name of Iva. She had gone all the way through college and obtained a degree in Zoology from the University of California [1940]. She sailed to Japan in 1941 but failed to take out a passport at the time of her departure. She was in the process of getting one issued through the State Department when the war broke out. Stuck in Tokyo, she applied for repatriation through the Swiss embassy but changed her mind and decided to wait out the war in Japan. While there, she worked for a news agency and then as a typist for Radio Tokyo. In November of 1943, she began her broadcasts called Zero Hour which eventually got her tried for treason in 1948 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. After serving a little over 6 years, she was released. The US government then tried to deport her but they were unsuccessful. She was pardoned by Gerald Ford in 1977 and was last known to be living in the Chicago area. Up until that time, she was only the 7th person convicted of treason by the US. (When she was in Tokyo in 1945, she married a Portuguese-Japanese man named Felipe D’Aquino.)

Many WWII flicks had scenes showing US troops listening to Tokyo Rose and joking about her.

The Pueblo Indians in the 12 century AD had figured it out!

These Indians (also known as the Anasazi) determined the right size
roof overhang for their latitude. The overhang would let the sun
come in through the windows in winter, yet shade the same window in
summer. In the American southwest they had mostly sunny days and this
technique worked well. The daytime sun would heat the walls of the
room in winter and the massive adobe walls would then re-radiate the
heat during the cold nights, keeping the inhabitants warm. In the
summer the walls stayed cool because the same overhang now kept the
daytime windows in shade. This kept the home cooler on the inside
during the hot summer days. However the walls did gain some heat
during the summer and provided warmth during the summer nights.
Remember that in arid climates the nights can get quite cold. The
Indians also used straw on the roof during the summer day to keep the
roof from getting too hot.

(The ancient Greeks also knew this window trick!)
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(If you put “Pueblo Indians and solar heat” into a search engine you
will get many interesting sites.)

We previously gave the history of Mayday celebrations.

Here is a good follow-up question . . . .

Why do we use the word Mayday for a distress call in radiotelephony
(voice)?
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The usage comes from the French word m’aidez – which means “help me”
- and is pronounced “mayday.” (Actually it’s pronounced “med-AY”,
but it is close enough and Mayday provides a good mnemonic!)

Bonus question . . . what is the next lower priority distress call
in radiotelephony?

It’s Pan Pan.

From the French word ‘panne’ – which approximately translates to
“breakdown” or “out of service” or “out of order”.

Mayday is used when human life is at stake. Pan Pan is used when
property is at stake.
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In telegraphy they used SOS. When the Titanic went down, they sent both the old and new code for distress. CQD and SOS, just to make sure it got through.
Euphemistically people say “Come quickly, distress” and “Save our Ship” or “Save our Souls”, but that was not the intent. They switched to SOS because it was easier to send and easy to understand. . . . _ _ _ . . .

The ancient Saxons and Celts celebrated Mayday. Mayday started off as
a pagan holy day celebrated on May 1st and was called Beltane, the
day of fire. Bel was the Celtic sun god. The holiday was celebrated
by the common folk and it was tied in with the hunt and the goddess
Diana. Later, it began to gravitate more toward becoming a farming
festival and in the Middle Ages, and took on a fertility vein. Guilds
would join in the Mayday celebration and used the event to give their
crafts some publicity.

Since it was a pagan festival and tied in with the common folk, the
Church tried to steer the May 1 holiday toward more of a religious
day and Mayday became affiliated with the adoration of Mary in
Catholic countries. The idea was to convert the thinking from a
pagan “Mayqueen” to Mary the “Queen of heaven”.

In the 16th century, the Maypole tradition appeared in Bavaria. Young
men and women would dance around the pole entwining ribbons and
“hoping to entrap” a lover in the ribbons. Again, there was this link
to fertility!

When labor began to formally organize in the 19th century, they
looked to May 1 as the appropriate day to celebrate labor movements,
probably because of the tie-in between modern unions and the old
guild celebrations. A tragic 1886 labor riot in the US, ending in
many deaths, forever linking the US Mayday celebrations with
“anarchists”. Because of this tragic US labor riot, foreign labor
movements seized on the May 1st day as a formal labor day and the
day eventually became affiliated with international communism.

As a result of the anarchist label and the link to socialism, etc.,
the US began to change labor day celebrations over to early
September. Some states had previously specified May 1 as Labor Day.

During the US anti-Communist movements of the late 1940s, May 1st was
renamed “Loyalty Day” to further distance it from the European Mayday celebrations, especially when these celebrations were marred by labor
riots. The [US] loyalty day concept faded away during the Vietnam
War era

My own link to Mayday is several old family photographs from the early
1900s. One is of my mother-in-law as a little girl dressed up in a
Mayday dress for a Maypole celebration in NYC and my mother as a teen
in a special dress for a church celebration of Mary. Also, a photo of
my sister in a Mayday dress from the late ‘40s but I do not remember
the event. I suspect that these types of celebrations pretty much
vanished right after WWII. I do not recall any kind of May 1st
festivities from my childhood.