SINGAPORE – Exactly 178 years ago on Saturday (July 15), a local newspaper was accidentally started by a wealthy businessman named Catchick Moses, who stepped in to help a fellow Armenian who had ordered a printing machine but ran into financial trouble.

The eight-page English language weekly, initially called The Straits Times and Journal of Commerce (ST), was aimed at a small but growing European population in Singapore hungry for news about home, as well as updates on the steady stream of sailing ships in the port city and prices of commodities.