I WANTED TO KNOW ANYWAY...

Checking wingnut claims is always a good idea, even if it's from an area one knows something about.  In this case, I do know something about typography but I didn't know when kerning began.  Tonight, a birther called in to Billy Cunningham's Sunday Show and claimed that because kerning did not exist in 1961,  Pres. Obama's full birth certificate is a fake.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, kerning has been around since the late 17th Century:

kerning, n.²

The operation of making kerns on type; the making of kerned letters. Also attrib. as   kerning-knife n.,  kerning-stick n. tools used in kerning letters.

1683    J. Moxon Mech. Exercises II. 177   This Kerning-stick is somewhat more than an Handful long‥. He also provides a Kerning-Knife.

1788    Chambers's Cycl. (new ed.) at Foundery,   These‥are scraped on the broad-sides with a knife or file.‥ This operation is called kerning.

1824    J. Johnson Typographia II. 22   The kerning of letters, it must be owned, may serve many good purposes.