Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, July 17, 1841

This is where British satire was born. The very first issue of Punch, published on July 17, 1841, launched what would become the longest-running satirical magazine in English. Here, readers encountered the hook-nosed, wide-grinning puppet who would spend the next 160 years mocking the pompous, exposing the hypocritical, and holding a cracked mirror to Victorian society. The inaugural issue establishes the publication's mission: to transform laughter into a weapon against absurdity, to amuse while also pricking the conscience of the powerful. The tone swings from gleeful vulgarity to sharp political critique, from parodying the latest aristocratic scandal to skewering the emerging railway mania consuming the nation. This is early Victorian Britain seen through a lens of irreverent, sometimes cruel, but always intelligent humor. For readers curious about where modern British comedy and satire actually came from, this first issue is the source code.