Events
The modern newspaper is a European invention.
The oldest direct ancestors of the modern
newspaper were the handwritten news sheets
that circulated widely in Venice as early as 1566The first printed newspapers were published
weekly in Germany from 1609After the English government relaxed censorship
in 1695, newspapers flourished in London and a
few other cities including Boston and Philadelphia.By the 1830s high speed presses could print
thousands of papers cheaply, so low cost daily
papers appeared in major cities. Most had
political sponsorsbut by 1900 advertising revenues became more
important than party supportThe rise of radio in the 1930s had a small impactBut television from the 1950s onward undercut the audienceThe rise of the internet after 2000First newspapers
The term newspaper became common in the
16th centuryThe German-language Relation aller Fürnemmen
und gedenckwürdigen Historien, printed from
1605 onwards by Johann Carolus in Strasbourg,
was the first newspaperOther early papers include the Dutch Courante
uyt Italien, Duytslandt, &c. of 1618 which was
the first to appear in folio- rather than quarto-
size. Amsterdam, a center of world trade,
quickly became home to newspapers in many
languages, often before they were published in
their own countryThe first English-language newspaper, Corrant
out of Italy, Germany, etc., was published in
Amsterdam in 1620. A year and a half later,
Corante, or weekely newes from Italy, Germany,
Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, France and the Low
Countreys. was published in England by an
"N.B." (generally thought to be either Nathaniel
Butter or Nicholas Bourne) and Thomas ArcherThe first newspaper in France was published in
1631, La Gazette (originally published as Gazette
de France)The first newspaper in Portugal, A Gazeta da
Restauração, was published in 1641 in LisbonThe first Spanish newspaper, Gaceta de Madrid,
was published in 1661.British newspapers
On 7 November 1665, The London Gazette
(at first called The Oxford Gazette) began
publication.[12] It decisively changed the look of
English news printing, echoing the coranto
format of two columns, a clear title, and a clear
date. It was published twice a week.[13] Other
English papers started to publish three times a
week, and later the first daily papers emergedNorth America
In Boston in 1690, Benjamin Harris published
Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and
Domestick. This is considered the first
newspaper in the American colonies even
though only one edition was published before
the paper was suppressed by the colonial
officials, possibly due to censorship and control
issues. It followed the two-column format and
was a single sheet, printed on both sides.In 1704, the governor allowed The Boston News-Letter,
a weekly, to be published, and it became the
first continuously published newspaper in the
colonies. Soon after, weekly papers began
publishing in New York and Philadelphia.The second English-language newspaper in the
Americas was the Weekly Jamaica Courant.
These early newspapers followed the British
format and were usually four pages long.
They mostly carried news from Britain and
content depended on the editor’s interests.
In 1783, the Pennsylvania Evening Post became
the first American daily.In 1751, John Bushell published the Halifax
Gazette, the first Canadian newspaper.German states
Germany invented printing, and produced the
first newspapers. However, Germany was
divided into so many competing states that
before unification in 1871, no newspaper played
a dominant role.India
Front page of Hicky's Bengal Gazette, the first
newspaper printed in Asia.
In 1766, a Dutch adventurer, William Bolts,
proposed starting a newspaper for the English
audience in Calcutta.India
In January 1780, James Augustus Hicky published
Hicky's Bengal Gazette, the first newspaper in
India. The size of that four-page newspaper was
12"x8".IndiaPeriods
16th century to 1800
Avvisi, or Gazzettes (not gazettes), were a
mid-16th-century Venice phenomenon.
They were issued on single sheets, folded to
form four pages, and issued on a weekly
schedule. These publications reached a larger
audience than handwritten news had in early
Rome. Their format and appearance at regular
intervals were two major influences on the
newspaper as we know it today. The idea of a
weekly, handwritten newssheet went from Italy
to Germany and then to Holland.The first successful English daily, The Daily Courant, was published from 1702 to 1735
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