"The Illustrated London News", the First Fully Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, Begins Publication

On Saturday, May 14, 1842 politician and journalist Herbert Ingram and Mark Lemon, editor of Punch, published the first issue of The Illustrated London News. The first issue, costing sixpence, and consisting of 16 pages with 32 woodcuts, was an exceptional commercial success. It had to be reprinted several times that day; the issue went through five reprints and sold 26,000 copies. It included pictures of the war in Afghanistan, a train crash in France, a steamboat explosion in Canada and a fancy dress ball at Buckingham Palace.

This was probably the first attempt to publish a news publication in which the emphasis was on the illustrations. The Illustrated London News continued as a weekly until 1971. According to Gale Digital Collections, publisher of the online archive of The Illustrated London News, circulation was 60,000 in 1842 and 300,000 at its peak in the 1860s.