History of Magazines and Newspapers

Timeline

• 1663 The world's first magazine – Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen (translation: Edifying Monthly Discussions) – is published in Germany. 

• 1731 The first modern general-interest magazine, The Gentleman's Magazine, is published in England as entertainment with essays, stories, poems and political commentary. 

• 1739 The Scots Magazine begins and today remains the oldest consumer magazine in print.
• 1741 Benjamin Franklin intends to publish America's first magazine, General Magazine, but is scooped when American Magazine comes out three days earlier.
• 1770 The first women's magazine, The Lady's Magazine, starts with literary and fashion content plus embroidery patterns.
• 1843 The Economist begins examining news, politics, business, science and the arts.
• 1857 The Atlantic magazine arrives.
• 1895 Collier's weekly magazine starts and is published until 1957.
• 1895 An American magazine, The Bookman, lists "Books in Demand" originating the idea of a bestseller list.
• 1896 The first pulp fiction magazines are printed on cheap wood pulp paper with ragged untrimmed edges.
• 1897 The old Saturday Evening Post is revived by Cyrus Curtis to become the most widely circulated weekly magazine.
• 1899 National Geographic appears.
• 1902 McClure's Magazine inaugurates the muckraking era with the article "Tweed Days in St. Louis" by C.H. Wetmore and Lincoln Steffens.
• 1912 Photoplay is the first magazine for movie fans.
• 1922 Reader's Digest begins publishing.
• 1925 New Yorker magazine arrives.
• 1923 Time, the first U.S. newsmagazine, is started by Henry Luce.
• 1933 Newsweek begins publication.
• 1933 Esquire is the first men's magazine.
• 1936 Life, a weekly photojournalism news magazine, is started by Henry Luce and continues to 1972.
• 1937 Look, a bi-weekly, general-interest and photojournalism magazine, starts and continues to 1971.
• 1944 Seventeen is the first magazine devoted to adolescents.
• 1953 TV Guide starts.
• 1953 Playboy opens with Marilyn Monroe on the cover.
• 1954 Sports Illustrated is started by Time magazine owner Henry Luce. Two other magazines with that name had been started in the 1930s and 1940s, but both had failed. 
  
• 1967 Rolling Stone demonstrates the popularity of special-interest magazines.
• 1967 New York magazine appears as a regional magazine.
• 1972 Feminist Gloria Steinem brings out Ms. magazine.
• 1974 People debuts with Mia Farrow on the cover.
• 1990 Entertainment Weekly starts.
• 1993 Wired magazine arrives with a voracious curiosity about everything under the Sun.