ABSTRACT

On 11 June 2007, the Guardian published its 50,000th edition. To commemorate the occasion, the newspaper reproduced 50 ‘memorable’ front pages from its archives including the very first issue of the paper published on 5 May 1821. There are striking differences in almost every aspect of the contents and design of that first issue and the newspaper published some 186 years later into which it had been inserted as a supplement.