The Day Before COVID Declared a Global Pandemic

‘Drafts of History’ -March 10, 2020

March 10, 2020 marked what may retrospectively be called the end of an era: it was the last day before the World Health Organisation officially declared the global pandemic that continues to reshape our world in critical ways.

As the restrictions and lockdowns came into effect worldwide, the ‘Drafts of History’ project has created a publicly sourced archive of that particular moment, articulated and comprehended through newspapers of a single day.¹

A thousand newspapers from over ninety countries

Highlights from the illustrations in the volume include: Guangbao/Kwang Pao, one of China’s earliest native-owned newspapers, published from Guangzhou between 1886 and 1891; Hamagid, the first Hebrew-language weekly newspaper, published from Lyck between 1856–1890 (two years before it moved to Berlin, then to Kraków, before closing down in 1903); Bramborski Zaßnik from Cottbus, Brandenburg, the first newspaper to publish contributions in Lower Sorbian; Berlingske Politiske og Avertissements Tidende, Denmark’s oldest continually operating newspaper; the lithographed Ettela/Ittila from Tehran; the Armenian Mshak published from Tbilisi; and Breton and Rhaeto-Romanic newspapers, among others. 

Here is the website:

Drafts of history 01 — Contextual Alternate (contextualternate.com)

Here is the book:

Limited edition volume, Drafts of history: the world in newspapers on a single day.

Marking the third anniversary of the project, we are delighted to announce the release of a limited edition volume, Drafts of history: the world in newspapers on a single day.

1. — Vaibhav Singh, Dept. of Typography & Graphic Communication
University of Reading