When the "News of the World" was launched in 1843, it was billed as the "novelty of the nation and the wonder of the world". By the 1950s sales had reached eight and a half million, and in 1968 it became the foundation on which Rupert Murdoch built his British empire, and in the last 25 years has continued to flourish. From the Crimean War to the Swinging Sixties, from World War I to the Profumo affair, the "News of the World" story is a chronicle of the life and times of Britain.