“Every edition of the Guardian and Observer newspapers is to be made available via a newly launched online digital archive.

“The first phase of the Guardian News & Media archive, containing the Guardian from 1821 to 1975 and The Observer from 1900 to 1975, will launch on November 3.

“It will contain exact replicas of the original newspapers, both as full pages and individual articles, and will be fully searchable.

“The rest of the archive will launch early in 2008, making more than 1.2m pages of digitised news content available, with Observer content available from its launch as the world's first Sunday newspaper in 1791.

“New reports featured in the archive cover events including the 1793 execution of Louis XVI, the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, and the 1833 abolition of the slave trade, the first and second world wars and the assassination of the US president, John F Kennedy.”

The Guardian / Guardian and Observer to launch online archive