Daily Express

The Daily Express is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson. Its sister paper, the Sunday Express, was launched in 1918. In June 2022, it had an average daily circulation of 201,608.

Under the ownership of Lord Beaverbrook, the Express rose to become the newspaper with the largest circulation in the world, going from 2 million in the 1930s to 4 million in the 1940s. It was acquired by Richard Desmond's company Northern & Shell in 2000. Hugh Whittow was the editor from February 2011 until he retired in March 2018. In February 2018 Trinity Mirror acquired the Daily Express, and other publishing assets of Northern & Shell, in a deal worth £126.7 million. To coincide with the purchase the Trinity Mirror group changed the name of the company to Reach. Hugh Whittow resigned as editor and Gary Jones took over as editor-in-chief soon after the purchase.

The paper's editorial stances have often been seen as aligned to Euroscepticism and supportive of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), and other right-wing factions including the European Research Group (ERG) of the Conservative Party.

The Daily Express was founded in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson, with the first issue appearing on 24 April 1900. Pearson lost his sight to glaucoma in 1913, and sold the title to the future Lord Beaverbrook in 1916.

The Express was one of the first papers to place news instead of advertisements on its front page, and carried gossip, sport, and women's features. It was also the first in Britain to have a crossword puzzle.

It began printing in Manchester in 1927. In 1931 it moved its London headquarters to 120 Fleet Street, a specially commissioned Art Deco building. Under Beaverbrook, the paper set newspaper sales records several times throughout the 1930s. Its success was partly due to aggressive marketing campaign and a circulation war with other populist newspapers. Arthur Christiansen became editor in October 1933. Under his direction sales climbed from two million in 1936 to four million in 1949. He retired in 1957. The paper also featured Alfred Bestall's Rupert Bear cartoon and satirical cartoons by Carl Giles which it began publishing in the 1940s. On 24 March 1933, a front-page headline, "Judea Declares War on Germany" (because of the Anti-Nazi boycott of 1933), was published.

During the late 1930s, the paper advocated the appeasement policies of Neville Chamberlain's National Government, due to the influence of Lord Beaverbrook. On 7 August 1939, the front-page headline was "NO WAR THIS YEAR". Less than a month later, Britain and France were at war with Nazi Germany following its invasion of Poland. The front page, floating in dirty water, later featured in In Which We Serve.

The ruralist and fascist author Henry Williamson wrote for the paper on many occasions over a span of half a century. He also wrote for the Sunday Express at the beginning of his career.