Abraham Verhoeven (1575–1652) was the publisher of the first

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sport ...

of the

Southern Netherlands The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands, 1556–1714) and later by the A ...

(now

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). In 1605 he got his license to print news of military victories in woodblock or copperplate. Thereafter he produced not only prints but also, with increasing frequency, illustrated news pamphlets. From early in 1620 he renewed his license in broader terms and began to print his news booklets as a single series. As a regularly printed news serial, this was the first newspaper of the Southern Netherlands. It was also the first regularly illustrated newspaper, and the first to print a headline on the front page. The newspaper had no consistent name or title masthead, and is known as the '' Nieuwe Tijdinghen'' (New Tidings), a retroactive designation given to it by historians and bibliographers. The

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, however, catalogues its holdings of the series as ''Antwerp Gazette''.Paul Arblaster, ''From Ghent to Aix: How They Brought the News in the Habsburg Netherlands'' (Leiden and Boston, 2014), p. 3
Partial view
on

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. Publication of the ''Nieuwe Tijdinghen'' ceased in 1629, to be succeeded shortly thereafter by the ''Wekelijcke Tijdinghen'' (Weekly Tidings), an unillustrated paper with a reduced format that survived until 1632. Verhoeven's newspapers chronicle the first decade of the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battl ...

and of the second phase of the

Eighty Years' War The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt ( nl, Nederlandse Opstand) ( c.1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Re ...

from a pro-Catholic and pro-Habsburg editorial perspective.

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* ''Sommaire contenant ce qui s'est passé de plus memorable es guerres de Boheme'' (Abraham Verhoeven, 1621)
On Google Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Verhoeven, Abraham 17th-century newspaper publishers (people) Low Countries newspaper publishers, pre-1795 (people) 1575 births 1652 deaths

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