59 B.C. Acta Diurna is published in Rome. Julius Caesar orders the major political and social events of the day to be made available to his citizenry. State appointed reporters, called “actuarii”, gather information on everything from wars and legal decisions to births, deaths, and marriages.
713 Mixed News in Kaiyuan is first newspaper published in China. “Kaiyuan” is the name given to the year in which the paper is published.
1040 In China, Pi Sheng invents printing from movable woodblocks.
1392 Movable copper type is invented in Korea.
1447 Johann Gutenberg invents letterpress printing, a process that will enable the mass production of the printed word.
1501 Pope Alexander VI decreed that printed material must be submitted to clerical authority prior to publication in order to prevent heresy. Failure to do so could result in fines or excommunication.
1556 Venetian government publishes Notizie scritte, a monthly newspaper for which readers pay a “gazetta”, or small coin.
1588 In Cologne, Germany, Michael Entzinger publishes a 24 page newsbook reporting on the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The newsbook’s front page shows a woodcut representing the Spanish Armada sailing off the coast of England. Although the report came months after the actual event occurred, this is one of the earliest “first reports” of a significant historical event.
1605 Johann Carolus publishes the first printed newspaper, Relation, in Strasbourg, now in France but at the time a part of the so-called ’Deutsches Reich’.
1621 In London, the newspaper Corante is published.
1631 The Gazette, the first French newspaper, is founded.
1639 First American colonial printing press
1645 World’s oldest newspaper still in circulation, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, is published in Sweden
1690 Publick Occurrences is the first newspaper published in America when it appears in Boston. The editor, Benjamin Harris, stated he would issue the paper “once a month, or, if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener.” The royal authority, wary of publications printed without its express consent, suppresses the newspaper after only one issue.
1704 Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe and often recognized as the world’s first journalist, begins to publish the Review, a periodical covering European affairs.
1798 Alois Sedenfelder Invents Lithography. Although invented over two centuries ago, offest lithography first gained popularity in the 1960’s, and is now the industry standard.
1803 Australia’s military government publishes the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, the country’s first newspaper. This is only fifteen years after the colony of convicts had been established in Sydney Cove.
1812 Friedrich Koenig invents of the Steam Powered Cylinder Press. In 1814, John Walter, publisher of The Times in London, began to assemble the new press in secrecy, fearing that his pressmen might riot if they discovered his plans.
On the night of November 28, 1814, Walter took his pressmen away from their hand presses with the excuse that he was expecting important news from the continent. He then used Koenig’s presses to produce the entire print run of The Times -- at an output of 1,100 sheets per hour.
1844 Telegraph is invented
1851 Reuters is established
1870s Charles Stewart Parnell uses the Freeman’s Journal to promote the causes of his Irish Nationalist Party.
1880 First photographs appear in a newspaper
1900 Vladimir Lenin founds Iskra, in Leipzig, Germany. This revolutionary newspaper is to become a major tool for Communist propoganda.
1903 Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) develops the first tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mirror, in London. The Daily Mirror introduced the concept of the “exclusive” interview. The first was with Lord Minto, the new Viceroy of India, in 1905.
1966 Behram “Busybee” Contractor begins publishing his column ‘Round and About” in the Evening News of India. Running until 2001, the satirical column became the longest running column in the history of newspaper journalism.
1994 First independent on-line daily appears on the World Wide Web.
