Existing comment:
1500
Spreading the Word:
Protesting Catholic Church corruption in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on a German church door. In just a month, printed newsbooks spread Luther's outrage across Europe.
1526
From Newsbooks To Newspapers:
Early printed news was in the form of "newsbooks," single-topic pamphlets distributed in the 15th and 16th centuries, before newspapers appeared. The subject matter, though, was much the same as what we read about today: war, crime, and politics. Newsbooks evolved into weekly newspapers and later, dailies. Newspapers had to be licensed, or "published by authority."
In 1605, Johann Carolus's Relation, Aller Furnemmen was one of Europe's first printed weeklies. Lucas Schulte's Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, below, was published in 1609.
1590
Patron Saint:
French cleric Francis de Sales roamed Europe in the late 1500s trying to win Calvinists back to the Catholic Church. De Sales's writings won 40,000 people back to Catholicism. In 1923, Pope Pius XI named him patron saint of journalists -- those who "as journalists and writers expound, spread and defend the doctrines of the Church." |