Media Timeline: 1712-1860
1712
1714 first typewriter patented by Henry Mill in England
1719 Reaumur proposes using wood to make paper
1720 South Sea Bubble bursts
1724 Thomas Longman founded
1727 The Gentleman's Magazine, first modern magazine
1740
1741 first magazine in America is published - American Magazine
1742 Ben Franklin's General Magazine prints first American magazine ads
1750
1755 Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language
1757 Whatman invents wove paper
1760
1762 John Murray founded
1764 Fournier develops point system to measure type sizes
1765 earliest known children's pop-up book
1768 first edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica
1768 first Letters of Junius in England
1768 first voyage of Cook's Endeavour
1770
1770 gum eraser
1770 Eyre & Spottiswoode founded
1772 first English patent for coloured ink
1774 paper whitener
1780
1783 Glasgow Herald founded
1785 first edition of London Daily Universal Register
1788 Daily Universal Register becomes The Times
1786 Playfair's Commercial & Political Atlas
1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man
1790
1791 establishment of the Observer
1792 Chappe's mechanical semaphore in France
1792 New York Stock Exchange established
1792 postal money orders in Britain
1794 Metric system in France
1798 Malthus' first Essay on Population
1798 Senefelder invents lithography
1798 Neue Zürcher Zeitung founded by Salomon Gessner
1799 paper-making machine invented in France by Robert
1800
1801 Jacquard invents punch-card control for looms
1803 Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser - first newspaper in Australia
1804 Bonnier founded
1806 carbon paper
1807 camera lucida
1807 John Wiley opens shop
1807 A&C Black founded
1808 Ricordi publishing house founded
1810
1811 Luddites have fun in Nottingham
1812 Churchill Livingstone founded
1813 can opener invented
1814 The Times printed by steam-powered rotary press
1815 patent for lined notepaper
1817 Berzelius isolates selenium
1817 Ricardo's On the Principles of Political Economy & Taxation
1817 Say's Catechism of Political Economy
1818 Butterworth founded
1820
1820 first manufactured calculating machine, de Colmar's Arithometer
1822 het Algemeen Handelsblad founded
1823 Babbage builds section of calculating machine
1827 Niépce makes first true photograph
1827 first microphone constructed by Wheatstone
1827 Samuel Morse founds Journal of Commerce
1829 first US patent for a typewriter
1829 Wheatstone uses punched paper tape to store data
1830
1830 number of ads in British newspapers rises to 877,972 pa
1830 Stamp Tax abolished in Australia
1832 Havas news agency established
1833 experimental 1 kilometre-long electric telegraph in Germany
1834 Babbage conceives Analytical Engine
1834 Routledge founded
1835
1835 Bertelsmann founded as a religious printer
1835 Agence Havas news and advertising agency founded
1835 Libel Act in England establishes truth allowed as defence in defamation for first time in UK
1836 General Register Office in the UK
1837 Wheatstone and Cooke patent electric telegraph
1837 Samuel Morse exhibits electric telegraph in US
1837 world's largest newspaper, New York Sun, has 30 000 circulation
1837 Pitman publishes book on shorthand
1838 Daguerre-Niépce method begins photographic revolution
1838 Arden and Strode launch weekly Port Phillip Gazette
1838 Ottoman Tariff Convention
1839 Fox Talbot in England produces photographs from negatives
1839 electrotyping (duplicating of printing plates) invented by Jacobi
1839 electricity used to run printing press
1839 Becquerel notes electrochemical effects of light
1839 Abbott founds Hobart Town Advertiser
1840
1840 first postage stamps sold in Britain
1841 Volney Palmer, first media broker
1841 first type-composing machine used in London
1842
Illustrated London News appears
Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) appears
Galveston Daily News founded
West, Waddell and Aikenhead found Launceston Examiner
first Christmas card
1843
Economist founded
Macmillan founded
photographic enlarger
Ada Lovelace publishes Notes about computing
first public telegraph line, from Paddington to Slough
1844
Pearson media group founded as UK civil engineering contractor
Toronto Globe founded
de Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant founded
Morse's telegraph connects Washington and Baltimore
1845
Straits Times launched
cable laid across English Channel
typewriter ribbon
1846
double cylinder rotary press produces 8 000 sheets per hour
Melbourne Argus appears
Moreton Bay (Brisbane) Courier
1847
Levi Strauss invents denim jeans
Bakewell develops "copying telegraph"
Uusi Suomi founded
1848
Mill's Principles of Political Economy
Marx's Das Kapital
first WH Smith railway bookstall
Cassell founded
first issue of Chicago Tribune
first US postage stamp
1849
photographic slide
first French postage stamp
Howe patents safety-pin
1850
first machine-made paper bag
Mannheim designs logarithmic slide rule
number of magazines published in US reaches 685
Societe des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique (SACEM) established in France as first true copyright collecting society
1851
first edition of New York Times
Hong Xuiquan launches Taiping Rebellion
Archer invents wet-plate photography
patent for Singer sewing machine
first Canadian stamp
Reuters established
1853
envelopes made by paper folding machine
establishment of Compagnie Générale des Eaux, precursor of Vivendi
1854
telegraph used in Crimean War
Wheatstone invents Playfair cipher
1854 Abbott, Syme and Thomson launch Diggers Advocate
Boole's Laws of Thought
first Australian telegraph line (Melbourne to Williamstown)
Carte-de-visite process simplifies photography
1855
compulsory prepayment of postage in US
Hughes' printing telegraph
pre-payment of letters made compulsory in US
Maury's The Physical Geography of the Sea
registered letters enter service in US
1856
Poitevan develops photolithography
blotting paper replaces sand boxes
machine-folding of newspapers
Symes buy The Age
1858
failure of first transatlantic telegraph service
eraser fitted to end of pencil
first aerial photograph
Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney linked by telegraph
1859
development of wide-angle camera lens
cable across Bass Strait
Darwin's The Origin of Species
Mill's On Liberty
Leopold Sonnemann launches Frankfurter Zeitung
Great Moral History of Port Curtis, Australia's first comic
1860
Sholes builds functional typewriter
Schibsted launches Aftenposten