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Born on this day
Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin
Jean Houdin was a French magician.
49th week in year
6 December 2019

Important eventsBack

The first edition of the Washington Post is published6.12.1877

Wikipedia (20 Jan 2014, 14:03)

The Washington Post (WP) is an American daily newspaper. It is the most widely circulated newspaper published in Washington, D.C., and was founded in 1877, making it the area's oldest extant newspaper.

Located in the capital city of the United States, the newspaper has a particular emphasis on national politics. Daily editions are printed for the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The newspaper is published as a broadsheet, with photographs printed both in color and in black and white. In 2008, Marcus Brauchli replaced long-time executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr., serving publisher Katharine Weymouth. In November 2012, Weymouth announced that Boston Globe editor Martin Baron would take over Brauchli's position on January 2, 2013.

In the early 1970s, in the best known episode in the recent history of The Post, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the American press's investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal; reporting in the newspaper greatly contributed to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. In years since, its investigations have led to increased review of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The newspaper is also known as the namesake of The Washington Post March, which John Phillip Sousa composed in 1889 while he was leading the United States Marine Band; it became the standard music to accompany the two-step, a late 19th-century dance craze.

The newspaper has won 47 Pulitzer Prizes. This includes six separate Pulitzers awarded in 2008, the second-highest number ever given to a single newspaper in one year. The Post has also received 18 Nieman Fellowships and 368 White House News Photographers Association awards, among others.

On August 5, 2013, Jeff Bezos agreed to purchase the newspaper for $250 million in cash, completing the transaction on October 1, 2013. The newspaper is owned by Nash Holdings LLC, a holding company created for the acquisition and controlled by Bezos.


Founding and early period

The newspaper was founded in 1877 by Stilson Hutchins (1838–1912) and in 1880 added a Sunday edition, thus becoming the city's first newspaper to publish seven days a week. In 1889, Hutchins sold the newspaper to Frank Hatton, a former Postmaster General, and Beriah Wilkins, a former Democratic congressman from Ohio. To promote the newspaper, the new owners requested the leader of the Marine Band, John Philip Sousa, to compose a march for the newspaper's essay contest awards ceremony. Sousa composed The Washington Post, which remains one of his best-known works. In 1899, during the Spanish–American War, The Post printed Clifford K. Berryman's classic illustration Remember the Maine, which became the battle-cry for American sailors during the War. In 1902, Berryman published another famous cartoon in The PostDrawing the Line in Mississippi. This cartoon depicts President Theodore Roosevelt showing compassion for a small bear cub and inspired New York store owner Morris Michtom to create the teddy bear.

Wilkins acquired Hatton's share of the newspaper in 1894 at Hatton's death. After Wilkins' death in 1903, his sons John and Robert ran The Post for two years before selling it in 1905 to John Roll McLean, owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer. During the Wilson presidency, The Post was credited with the "most famous newspaper typo" in D.C. history according to Reason magazine; The Post intended to report that President Wilson had been "entertaining" his future-wife Mrs. Galt, but instead wrote that he had been "entering" Mrs. Galt. When John McLean died in 1916, he put the newspaper in trust, having little faith that his playboy son Edward "Ned" McLean could manage his inheritance. Ned went to court and broke the trust, but, under his management, the newspaper slumped toward ruin.




(photo source www.washingtonpost.com)

   
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