40 Fun Facts About Newspapers

Until 3 May 1966, what filled the front page of The Times of London instead of news?

Classified advertisements — small notices aimed at the moneyed classes — held the front page until news took over on 3 May 1966, on a paper that had been printing on Friedrich Koenig's steam-driven press since 1814.

Which paper's 1948 headline 'Dewey Defeats Truman' was gleefully held aloft by the re-elected president?

The Chicago Daily Tribune, a Republican-leaning paper that had once called Truman a 'nincompoop', went to press early with the wrong result; Truman posed with a copy at St. Louis Union Station on 4 November 1948.

Clifford Berryman's 1902 Washington Post cartoon of Theodore Roosevelt sparing a captive animal inspired which toy?

The teddy bear was created by New York shopkeeper Morris Michtom after he saw Berryman's 'Drawing the Line in Mississippi', in which Roosevelt spares a small bear cub on a hunting trip.

Charles Schulz died in February 2000 — how long before the last original Peanuts Sunday strip appeared in print?

One day earlier: Schulz died on 12 February 2000 and the final strip ran on 13 February, closing a run of 17,897 strips that has been called the longest story ever told by one human being.

Rival advice columnists 'Dear Abby' (Pauline Phillips) and Ann Landers (Esther Lederer) were what to each other?

Twin sisters: Abby was born Pauline Esther Friedman and her twin was born Esther Pauline Friedman, and the two ran competing syndicated advice columns for decades.

In Superman's 1938 debut in Action Comics #1, Clark Kent worked not for the Daily Planet but for which paper?

The Star — in full the Daily Star, under editor George Taylor — was named by co-creator Joe Shuster after the Toronto Daily Star, the paper he had delivered as a newsboy.

Before it described newspapers, 'Tabloid' was a trademark of London pharmaceutical firm Burroughs Wellcome for what?

Compressed pills sold as 'Tabloid' in the late 1880s gave the word its sense of something condensed, which newspapers then borrowed for their small-format, short-story editions.

Which press baron, enraged by Citizen Kane's unflattering portrait of him, pressured cinemas to limit its showings?

William Randolph Hearst tried to stop the film's release without having seen it, and his Hollywood friends pressured theatre chains to limit showings, denting both the box office and Orson Welles's prospects.

In Citizen Kane, which newspaper does Charles Foster Kane buy and turn into a sensationalist empire?

The New York Inquirer was Kane's first purchase, which he filled with scandalous attacks on the business interests of Thatcher, the banker who raised him — and on his own.

Which halfpenny paper, launched in 1896, did Lord Salisbury dismiss as 'produced by office boys for office boys'?

The Daily Mail, devised by Alfred Harmsworth and his brother Harold, cost a halfpenny when rival London dailies cost a penny, and by 1902 its circulation of over a million was the largest in the world.

Which paper did Alfred Harmsworth launch in 1903 as a newspaper for women, run by women, then relaunch with pictures?

The Daily Mirror's relaunch put news text and engraved pictures on the front page, and two days later its price fell to a halfpenny under the line 'A paper for men and women'.

Which Sunday tabloid printed its final edition, headlined 'Thank You & Goodbye', on 10 July 2011 after 168 years?

News of the World was shut by News International within days of the revelation that a private investigator it hired had hacked the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

'Gotcha', a notorious tabloid front page of 4 May 1982, celebrated the torpedoing of which Argentine ship?

The General Belgrano, a cruiser sunk during the Falklands War, was the subject of The Sun's 'GOTCHA' headline, one of the paper's best-known front pages.

'It's The Sun Wot Won It' claimed credit on 11 April 1992 for which party's unexpected general election victory?

The Conservatives under John Major won despite the polls; The Sun had run an election-day front page saying that if Neil Kinnock won, 'will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights'.

'The Truth', a 1989 front page falsely blaming Hillsborough victims, sparked a boycott of The Sun that persists where?

Merseyside's boycott — shoppers refusing to buy the paper and retailers refusing to stock it — began immediately after the 19 April 1989 front page, which editor Kelvin MacKenzie later said he had been 'duped' into running.

'Headless Body in Topless Bar', Vincent Musetto's 1983 headline, ran in which tabloid founded by Alexander Hamilton?

The New York Post began life as a Federalist broadsheet, the New-York Evening Post, and Musetto — also the paper's film critic — stayed on until he retired in 2011.

'Ford to City: Drop Dead' — words the president never said — was the 1975 headline of which tabloid, America's first?

The New York Daily News, launched in 1919 as the Illustrated Daily News and the first US daily in tabloid format, coined the line after Gerald Ford refused federal aid to a city in fiscal crisis.

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835, a penny paper's tale of bat-winged lunar people, credited which astronomer with the find?

John Herschel, a real astronomer, was falsely credited along with a fictitious companion, Andrew Grant; the New York Sun never retracted the six articles but admitted on 16 September 1835 that they were fabricated.

Which British paper bought the forged 'Hitler Diaries' in 1983 after historian Hugh Trevor-Roper vouched for them?

The Sunday Times had asked its director Trevor-Roper to authenticate the sixty volumes, which Konrad Kujau had forged and the magazine Stern had bought for 9.3 million Deutsche Marks.

Which British paper dreamed up San Serriffe, an island nation with places named after typefaces, as a 1977 April Fool?

The Guardian's hoax was dreamed up by its special reports manager Philip Davies, and the islands resurfaced as the theme of the paper's cryptic crossword in April 2009.

Ketcham's Dennis the Menace launched in March 1951 on the same day as an unrelated British Dennis — in which comic?

The Beano's Dennis is no relation to Hank Ketcham's; in the United Kingdom the American series was retitled Just Dennis so as not to conflict with the Beano character.

Which publisher bought the loss-making New York Times in 1896 and gave it the motto 'All the News That's Fit to Print'?

Adolph Ochs, a 38-year-old Chattanooga publisher, was tipped off that the paper could be had cheaply; his family still chairs it, and its sober look earned it the nickname 'the Gray Lady'.

Which slogan did The Washington Post unveil in February 2017 — first on Snapchat, then on its website and in print?

'Democracy Dies in Darkness' had been used inside the company for years before it was adopted, and the paper insisted the timing was not a response to Donald Trump's actions.

Rupert Murdoch shifted his London papers overnight in January 1986 to a plant in which district, sacking the strikers?

Wapping's new plant let News International print its titles without the 6,000 print-union members who struck on 24 January 1986 and were all dismissed, in a year-long dispute the unions lost.

Which British daily, launched in October 1986, printed its final paper edition in March 2016 and became online-only?

The Independent had already led the shift from broadsheet to compact format in 2003; its last printed edition appeared on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the website.

On a newspaper's op-ed page, where outside contributors air their opinions, the 'op' is short for what?

Opposite — op-ed means 'opposite the editorial page', a format The New York Times popularised, though Herbert Bayard Swope's 1921 'Page Op.' in the New York Evening World is a possible precursor.

Which grim newsroom term for a paper's clippings archive did one press baron forbid his papers from keeping on him?

The morgue — originally detectives' folders of old notes — became the name for clippings kept as quick reference, and at least one newspaper magnate forbade his own papers from keeping one on him.

North American reporters traditionally typed which mark at the end of a story to show the copy was complete?

-30- came from the 92 Code of Civil War-era telegraphers, where it signified the end of a transmission, and it is still found at the end of press releases.

Which typeface, developed under Stanley Morison for a London newspaper, made its debut in that paper on 3 October 1932?

Times New Roman was commissioned by The Times in 1931 after Morison, Monotype's artistic adviser, recommended replacing its spindly nineteenth-century text face with a sturdier design based on Plantin.

The spire of St Bride's, the journalists' church on Fleet Street, is said to have inspired what in 1703?

The wedding cake's tiers are said to date from 1703, when Thomas Rich, a baker's apprentice from Ludgate Hill, drew on the church's design for an extravagant cake.

The Acta Diurna, daily notices carved on stone or metal and posted in Rome's Forum, were begun in 59 BC by whom?

Julius Caesar, according to Suetonius, first ordered the acts of the people to be kept and published by public officers, and the Acta continued until AD 222.

The oldest newspaper still published, founded in 1645 and online-only since 2007, is which country's official gazette?

Sweden's Post- och Inrikes Tidningar was founded as the Ordinari Post Tijdender by Queen Christina and Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, and the Swedish Academy has published it since 1791.

Britain's official London Gazette began in 1665 in which city, where Charles II's court had fled the Great Plague?

Oxford was where courtiers, unwilling to touch London newspapers for fear of contagion, received the first Oxford Gazette on 7 November 1665; it moved with the King and became The London Gazette in February 1666.

Who produced The Daily Courant, Britain's first daily newspaper, from premises beside Fleet Bridge in March 1702?

Elizabeth Mallet promised only foreign news and no comment of her own, trusting readers to have 'sense enough to make reflections for themselves', and sold the paper to Samuel Buckley after forty days.

Publick Occurrences, the first multi-page newspaper in British America (Boston, 1690), was closed after how many issues?

One issue was all Benjamin Harris managed: its account offended the colonial governor and the authorities closed it within days, despite a plan to publish monthly 'or, if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener'.

Which British title, first published by W. S. Bourne on 4 December 1791, is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper?

The Observer's first issue appeared on 4 December 1791, and its digitised archive now runs to 2003 — more than two centuries of Sunday reading.

Hicky's Bengal Gazette, India's first newspaper, was published from 1780 in which city?

Calcutta, capital of British India, hosted James Augustus Hicky's weekly for just two years before the East India Company seized its types and press after it attacked Governor General Warren Hastings.

Which cartoonist, first to depict the Republican Party as an elephant, also drew the first modern Santa Claus in 1863?

Thomas Nast's 1863 Santa appeared as a Union soldier dangling a noosed puppet of Jefferson Davis, and his attacks on Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall made him the scourge of New York's political machine.

Which Washington Post cartoonist introduced the word 'McCarthyism' in a cartoon of 29 March 1950?

Herblock — Herbert Lawrence Block — made Senator Joseph McCarthy a recurring target in the early 1950s, and later turned his pen on Richard Nixon and the tobacco industry.

Which children's author drew over 400 political cartoons in two years for the New York daily PM during World War II?

Dr. Seuss — Theodor Geisel — paused children's books to draw for PM and then joined the US Army's animation and film department, having earlier drawn adverts for Flit insecticide and Standard Oil.