First known as the Illustrated Daily News, it was a new paper unrelated to the previous "New York Daily News" that was published from 1855 to 1906.

The Daily News became popular with riders of the subway as the smaller size of the paper was easier to manage on crowded trains.

It was founded by a co-publisher of the Chicago Tribune and was based on the format of the London tabloid, the Daily Mirror.

The famous red icon of the Daily News may look cryptic today, but it is a stylized version of the original logo, a folding film camera with a wired remote shutter trigger curling around to the side.

The dedication of the Daily News to being a paper focused on photography would continue into the era of television when the company founded a local tv station broadcasting on channel 11 using a clever nickname for photos, "pics", to become WPIX!