How long is it since the first newspaper was printed?

　　  The first newspapers were handwritten sheets which were posted in public places. The earliest recorded newspaper was started in Rome in 59 B. C. In the 700s, the world’s first printed newspaper was developed in China. The paper was printed from carved wooden blocks and distributed among the citizens. Europe didn’t have a regularly published newspaper until 1609, when one was started in Germany.
　　  The first regularly published newspaper in the English language was printed in Amsterdam in 1620. In 1621,an English newspaper was started in London and was published weekly. The first daily English newspaper was the daily Courant (current), which didn’t appear until March 1702.
     In 1690, Benjamin Harris printed the first American newspaper in Boston. The paper was called Publick (public) Occurrences, both Forreign (foreign) and Domestick (domestic). The local government, however, didn’t approve of the paper and stopped its publication after the first issue. In 1704, John Campbell started The Boston Newsletter, the first newspaper to be published daily in the American colonies. By 1760, the colonies had more than thirty daily newspapers. There are now about 1,800 daily papers in America.
     Today, as a group, English language newspapers have the largest circulation ail over the world. The largest circulation for an individual newspaper, however, is that of the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, which sells more than eleven million copies each day.