The Associated Press was formed

In 1846, the Associated Press was formed in New York City. It was born out of the collective desire of five New York City newspapers to be the first to spread the news of the Mexican-American War northward. Together, they pooled their money to fund a pony express route through Alabama that would beat the U.S. Post Office to the punch.

Since their founding 171 years ago, the AP has broken the news on moments like the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the death of Pope John Paul. The organization publishes 2,000 stories a day, and 1 million photos per year — all of which are reprinted by its 1,400 member news organizations across the world. The AP currently operates in over 100 countries.

The AP has won a total of 52 Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and photography, many of which were for documentation of the Vietnam War. Most recently, AP received the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2016 for its investigation of slave labor in the Southeast Asian fishing industry, which clued American consumers into the widely available supermarket brands that were perpetuating slavery. Around 2,000 slaves were freed as a result of the reporting.