March 11

Edward Mallet rented rooms over the White Hart pub, on Fleet Street in London, England. From these rooms he wrote and published a newspaper called The Daily Courant. The paper was a single page with two columns. Publication of the paper began on the 11th in 1702. Its appearance made the paper the first regular daily newspaper in the United Kingdom. The paper had a decent run, lasting until 1735 when it merged with the Daily Gazetteer. Today, anyone with half a mind to do so can publish pretty much whatever he or she wants to. While the ‘half a mind’ part is not a requirement, a brief perusal of today’s papers will clearly show that writers with half a mind would immeasurably improve the stuff that is printed and sees the light of day.