Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Daily Express was founded by Sir Arthur Pearson, with its first issue published on the 24th of April 1900. Pearson later lost his sight to glaucoma and sold the title in 1916 to Max Aitken, who became Lord Beaverbrook.
Under editor Arthur Christiansen, the Daily Express reached a peak of four million copies sold per day in 1949, making it the newspaper with the largest circulation in the world at that time. By June 2022, that figure had fallen to 201,608.
Richard Desmond, publisher of the celebrity magazine OK!, bought Express Newspapers in 2000 for £125 million. In February 2018, Trinity Mirror (which renamed itself Reach plc) acquired the Express and Desmond's other publishing assets for £126.7 million.
The Daily Express and its sister papers ran more than 100 stories accusing Kate and Gerry McCann of causing and covering up their daughter's death. In March 2008, all four papers ran front-page apologies after a libel suit, and agreed to pay damages that the McCanns directed toward the search for their daughter. The group known as the Tapas Seven received a further apology and payout in October 2008.
The Daily Express has backed the Conservative Party at every general election since World War II, with two exceptions: it endorsed the Labour Party in 2001 and the UK Independence Party in 2015. Its 2015 endorsement of UKIP made it one of the first UK media outlets to publicly call for withdrawal from the European Union.
The Crusade for Freedom launched on the 8th of January 2011, asking readers to sign a petition calling for a UK withdrawal from the European Union. The first week produced around 370,000 signatures. Supporters included Ian Botham and J D Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin.