Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Manchester Guardian first appeared on the 5th of May 1821, the very day Napoleon died. Cotton merchant John Edward Taylor launched the paper with backing from a group called the Little Circle.
C. P. Scott served as editor for 57 years starting in 1872 before buying the paper in 1907. Ownership passed to the Scott Trust in June 1936 to ensure editorial independence forever.
The newspaper broke the News International phone-hacking scandal in 2011, specifically revealing the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone. In June 2013, The Guardian subsequently revealed the existence of the PRISM surveillance program after Edward Snowden leaked information about secret Verizon telephone record collection by the Obama administration.
A MORI poll between April and June 2000 showed that 80 percent of Guardian readers were Labour Party voters. The paper enthusiastically supported Tony Blair's bid to become Prime Minister but opposed the Iraq War alongside the Daily Mirror.
On the 12th of February 1988, the newspaper redesigned its masthead using an italic Garamond The combined with bold Helvetica Guardian. Plans to change to Berliner format were announced in 2004 following moves by The Independent and The Times before the new format launched on Monday the 12th of September 2005 at a cost of £80 million.
The Guardian launched Guardian America in 2007 targeting over 5.9 million online US readers. A European digital edition arrived in September 2023 with ten journalists and four columnists initially hired while the paper launched a membership scheme in 2014 allowing monthly subscriptions without introducing a paywall.