“A newspaper consists of just the same number of word, whether there be any news in it or not.”
Henry Fielding, Novelist
In 1605 Johann Carolus (1575-1634) published the first printed issue of Relation alter Furnemmen und gedenckwurdigen Historien in Strasbourg, France, thereby giving the world its first newspaper.
Similar concepts had been around for more than 1,500 years. Julius Caesar established the Acta Diurna—a newsletter carved on stone or metal—for the citizens of Rome, and, almost 800 years later in 713, the Chinese Tang Dynasty published the Kaiyuan Za Bao, a news-bulletin handwritten on silk.
Initially Carolus copied his newsletters by hand and sold them to rich subscribers. But in order to make his publication affordable to more people, and thus increase his revenue, he bought a printing shop in 1604. Despite his modern approach, Relation did not survive, so today the Dutch daily Haarlems Dagblad (after merging with the Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant from 1656) is the world's oldest existing newspaper.
Initially the medium was viewed skeptically by some. Benjamin Harris found out as much when he tried to establish the United States's first newspaper, Publick Occurrences, Both Forreign and Domestick, in 1690. The paper was meant to be "furnished once a moneth (or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener)." But he was forced to abandon this plan after only one issue when outraged government officials decided that his publication contained "reflections of a very high order" and had been printed "Without the least Privity or Countenance of Authority."
While the Internet now poses a danger to many newspapers, more than a billion people worldwide still read a daily newspaper in print every day.
