Top 10 Oldest Newspapers In History

May 26, 2012 Naster Rawal 1 Comments

It started in 1737, Joy’s Entry in Belfast, an age where ink was very special and prints had to be taken with tedious maneuvers and tricks. This then was a riskier attempt of printing daily news on paper with an equal opportunity of failure, but as time grew and the newspaper gained audience it was significantly easier to operate the publication on a larger margin and thus we see its publication still active to this current day. The News Letter is Northern Ireland’s regular newspaper printed form Monday to Saturday and the content discussed is generally unionist.

Europe’s most famous, this newspaper belongs to Austria and it is still in publication today. In the beginning this newspaper was used as a formal news platform by the Government of the Republic of Austria under the name of Wiennerisches Diarium and its first issue was printed on August 8, 1703. This newspaper contained the usual regular news around the country, government announcements to the public, news about weddings and events, obituaries, analysis of the Imperial court and the original domestic news was left to the unlucky drummer who banged his instrument and announced the news.

It began its life on November 7, 1665 during the Great Plague of London, under the name Oxford Gazette and people at that time were not willing to read or touch this newspaper because of the fear of a deadly contamination. When the plague was over and the King back in London, all was well and the countrywide publication was ordered and since then it’s still active to this current day. London Gazette discusses public interests, regional news, announcements, sports, entertainment and other special news.

This is Poland’s first sheet of paper to bear any writing or news ever to be printed in 1661. At that time, resources were scarce, people were poor, and so King John Casimir and his wife took notice and sponsored the publication of the newspaper. This newspaper was published weekly and contained news from all over Poland, European sovereign affairs and politics, commercial reforms and military information. The king, as rumored got carried away with his superior political ideas which led to the departure of this good old newspaper.

It began in Haarlem, Netherlands in the year 1656, as one of the oldest newspaper to date. For some unexplained reasons this newspaper was so good in content and style that many competitors imitated it so authorities took notice and changed its name to De Oprechte Haerlemse Courant (whatever THAT means) and it was again very popular and succeeded many English newspapers because of its content clarity. The Germans in the Second World War occupied Netherlands which resulted in the newspaper merging with Haarlems Dagblad , hence the name.

A government newspaper belonging to Sweden served as the official platform for news, announcements, critical information, bankruptcy news, auctions and advertising. Queen Christina and Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna in 1645 came up with the idea of producing a regular medium to work as a long running public channel. The process worked when every postmaster around Sweden wrote about the narrations and events they heard and all these notes then became a lengthy newspaper. Since January 1 2007 this newspaper turned digital because the owner saw no promising future and said that it was a “cultural disaster”.

La Gazette or more precisely Gazette de France was a French newspaper or some reported it as a magazine back in 1631, an age of drastic revolutions and mayhem. Nouvelles à la main or hand written notes were used to document and circulate the news all around France which quickly became a tedious and a chaotic medium of a news channel, but then this newspapers came along and changed everything especially one particular division of French royalists used it frequently to address their interests and policies. This newspaper was discontinued in 1915.

The very first Dutch newspaper ever to be printed successfully and retained its populace for quite some time between the years 1618 and 1629. Its first regular weekly print came out in 1618 in Amsterdam, the capital city of Netherlands. The header or the name of the publisher and other reference is not available for this newspaper because at that time none of this related information was printed on the newspaper itself, but later judging from the news published in it people have come closer to its roots, but still it was a very old single sheet of quality news ever printed in history.

It was 1609 in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, the age of Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation when this periodical came out to the public which contained news from around the globe, government news, changing policies and other political discussions. Lucas Schulte was the man responsible for this newspaper, but whoever it may be I would certainly love to hold this piece of paper, I mean 1609! Damn! That’s old

The World Association of Newspapers battled to place the world first newspaper on stand between The Relation and Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, and the winner was The Relation which actually was called “Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien”. Entire credit goes to Johann Carolus for bringing in such an invention, an invention that meant shaping the public interests, announcing the country’s reforms, awareness about the changing world and so on. This newspaper is in a German Language and dates back to 1605 in Strasbourg during the era of the Holy Roman Empire.