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The nation's first daily newspaper, The Pennsylvania Evening Post— began publication on this day in 1783 — printed by Benjamin Towne in Philadelphia. Americans' hunger for news was such that by 1850, there were some 250 dailies across the nation, reaching about three-quarters of a million readers. The number of newspapers peaked in 1909, when there were 26-hundred dailies across the nation, with a circulation of over 24 million.

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