09/24/2025
On this date in history (September 22, 1888), the very first issue of National Geographic Magazine was published and sent to just 165 charter members.
Unlike the magazine we know today, this first issue was a plain, terracotta-colored journal with no photographs at all. 🗺️
It was a scholarly publication, filled with dense, technical articles intended for a small group of academics and explorers.
The National Geographic Society had been founded earlier that year by 33 men in Washington, D.C., with Gardiner Greene Hubbard as its first president.
After Hubbard's death, his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, took over as president and wanted the magazine to appeal to a wider audience.
He hired a young editor named Gilbert H. Grosvenor, who made a daring decision in 1905.
Grosvenor published a large collection of photographs from a remote part of Tibet, something unheard of at the time, and it was an instant success with the public. 📸
This single issue marked the magazine's pivot to photojournalism. The famous yellow border was added in 1910, and the first color photo appeared in 1914.
From a technical journal for a handful of members, National Geographic grew into a global icon that brought the wonders of the world into millions of homes.
