“The first regular organ for spreading the news dates to the Roman gazette Acta Diurna (Action Journal), which began dailly publication in 59 B.C.

Posted throughout the city in places where the population congregated, the paper was begun by Julius Caesar and was not all that different from today’s tabloids; it printed social and political news, details of criminal trials and executions, announcements of births, marriages, and deaths, and even highlights of sporting and theatrical events at the Circus Maximus and Coloseum.”

—Charles Panati, The Browser’s Book of Beginnings, 1984.