Results: The History of News and Communication * Part Fifteen * Illustrated News - Newspapers are increasingly embellished with engravings. The profession of illustration fully takes hold in the early 1800s.

With its debut in 1842, the Illustrated London News became the world's first fully illustrated weekly newspaper, marking a revolution in journalism and news reporting. The publication presented a vivid picture of British and world events -- including news of war, disaster, ceremonies, the arts, and science -- with coverage in the first issue ranging from the Great Fire of Hamburg to Queen Victoria's fancy dress ball at Buckingham Palace. Did you know that In 1848 they illustrated The French Revolution?

1860 – Photozincography A reproduction of the Domesday Book ( he Great Survey of England of William the Conqueror A.D. MLXXXVI. Facsimile of the Part Relating to Cornwall.) is the first publication that is printed using photozincography, a lithographic printing technique that uses zinc plates instead of stones. These plates are easier to move than lithographic stones and can handle larger print runs. They are the precursor to today's aluminum offset printing plates. Photozincography is developed by the team of Sir Henry James of the British Ordnance Survey. Were you aware that zinc plates were used to improve production in these times?

1865 – Faster web presses William Bullock perfects Hoe's rotary press. His press doesn't print on sheets but is fed by a roll of paper that is printed on both sides. The press then folds the paper and cuts sheets at a speed of up to 12,000 sheets an hour. Bullock dies during an operation to amputate his leg that accidentally got crushed in one of his presses. Were you aware of William Bullock and his fate?

During the 1830s and 1840s, some American daily penny newspapers began to occasionally include wood engravings related to news events, particularly the New York Herald, which, in 1845, printed the first-ever full-page pictorial cover in a daily newspaper when it covered Andrew Jackson's funeral procession. But by 1850 it, too, realized that the wood engraving process was too lengthy and expensive to make profitable and ceased to include images. (Lithography was a cheaper and quicker image process, but it could not be produced on the same press as handset movable type.) Did you know the life blood of the Penny Press became advertising, rather than subscription sales?

It was not until 1855, when an English immigrant named Henry Carter (alias Frank Leslie) began his own illustrated newspaper, that the United States saw its first commercial success in the illustrated press arena. Developments in transportation, printing technology, and the literary and pictorial market, as well as Leslie's six years of experience in the engraving department at the London Illustrated News, all combined to make Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper a success. Still, these factors alone were not enough. Instability remained the norm for the first few years until the debate over slavery and the commencement of the Civil War solidified the desire and need for an illustrated press to satisfy an expanded middle class hungry for news and knowledge. Did you know that illustrations of the Civil War captured the public's attention?