The earliest regular newspapers of which we have record date back many centuries before the invention of printing to the Acta Diurna of the Roman Empire and the gazettes published in China during the 1st Century of the Christian era.
The Acta Diurna or Daily Acts began regular and official publication on the orders of Julius Caesar in 59 B.C. The news was collected by reporters (actuarii) employed by the state who posted the Acta on a whitened board so that all could read or copy the reports of wars, speeches, legal decisions, political events, marriages, divorces, accidents and human expiration.
Pioneers in printing, the Germans were also pioneers in printed newspapers. The first irregular news sheets began to appear in cologne, Nurnberg and other cities within 50 years of the invention of modern printing in 1450. By the end of the 17th Century a number of German towns were reading their own daily newspapers, thus establishing a tradition for local dailies which has been maintained to this day.
In 1562 Venice had a printed monthly newspaper which was sold for gazettea, a small coin with a name which soon became another word for a newspaper. Among the first journals to use the name was the Gazette de France of 1631.
The first regular newspaper in the English language was produced in Holland in 1620 by the English Puritans who later sailed to America in the Mayflower. But more than 80 years were to pass before the first English daily, the Daily Courant appeared in 1702.
The first American newspaper, called Public Occurrences, was first published in Boston on September 25, 1690, but was suppressed by the authorities before it could produce a second issue. The first regular American paper was the Boston News-Letter which appeared in April 1704 and ran for more than 70 years.
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