Did you know the first newspaper in the future United States lasted one day?

The official reason the governor of the Massachusetts colony shut down Publick Occurrences was because publisher Benjamin Harris — a stern advocate of freedom of speech — failed to get a license. The unofficial reason was the British government did not like what Harris’ publication had to say, characterizing its content as “uncertain reports.” More than a decade would go by before the monarchy would allow another newspaper to be published, one with the king’s approval.

That was in the fall of 1690 — roughly 85 years before the start of the American Revolution and nearly a century before the ratification of the Constitution. Before there was a 1st Amendment or even a United States, there was an authoritarian gove

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