Gaylene Santos, age 7, of Staten Island, N.Y., for her question:

WHAT IS THE OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD?

First newspaper published in the American Colonies was the Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick. It was launched in 1690 in Boston by Benjamin Harris. Because of its bold statements, the paper was suppressed after the first issue. The next journalistic attempts came with the Boston¬News Letter in 1704 and with the New England Courant which started in 1721.

The world's first newspaper was the Tsing Pao, a court journal published in Peking starting about 500. This publication continued in operation until 1935. At first it was produced from carved blocks instead of type.

European forerunners of printed newspapers were written newsletters. Roman scribes regularly sent them to businessmen and politicians in distant cities to keep them informed of the happenings in Rome.

Also popular in Rome was the posted bulletin. The leading one was called Acta Diurna, which means Daily Events. It began to be posted regularly in the Forum from about 60 B.C. News from the bulletin was often copied by the scribes and sent abroad in newsletters.

With Gutenberg's invention of printing from movable type, publication of news pamphlets became regular across Europe, and especially in Germany. But since not too many people could read, the news pamphlets weren't widely distributed.

First regularly published newspapers were issued in Germany in the early 1600s. Records show the oldest to be the Strasburg Relation, which started in 1609.

First newspaper to be published continuously in England was the Courant, or Weekly Newes, which started in 1622. England's first daily paper was the London Daily Courant which was started in 1702 by a woman named

Elizabeth Mallett. The famous London Times was founded in 1785 under the name of the Daily Universal Register.

The first American newspaper outside Boston was the American Weekly Mercury which was founded in Philadelphia in 1719 by Andrew Bradford. His father, William Bradford, started the first New York paper, the Gazette, in 1725.

Statesman Benjamin Franklin published the Pennsylvania Gazette from 1729 to 1766.

America's first daily newspaper was the Pennsylvania Evening Post and Daily Advertiser, born in 1783 in Philadelphia. The first paper published west of the Appalachian Mountains was the ,Pittsburgh Gazette, which was founded in 1786.

When the Revolutionary War started, there were 35 newspapers being published in the Colonies.