Culture and Recreation

Johannes Gutenberg

When was the first newspaper published?

Newspapers, publications that are issued regularly (usually daily or weekly) to notify readers of current events, had their first recorded appearance about 59 B.C., when Romans posted a daily handwritten news report in public places (the report was called the Acta Diurna, or “Daily Events”). In about A.D. 700 the Chinese developed the world’s first printed newspaper, called the Dibao; it was printed from carved wooden blocks. The invention of the moveable-type printing press (c. 1450) spurred the development of the newspaper as we know it. In Germany regularly published newspapers began being circulated in the early 1600s. Newspapers proliferated in the 1800s after the development of a machine that allowed paper to be produced in sheets of any size.



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