THE SUN celebrated forty years as a tabloid today in typically brash style with pull-outs, celebrity interviews and prime-time television advertisements.
It has a chequered history, to say the least, but remains Britain's most popular daily with just under three million sales and a readership of almost eight million.
The tabloid version of the paper was actually pre-dated by a broadsheet which had replaced the loss-making Daily Herald in 1964.
The broadsheet continued to lose circulation and money which led to owners International Press Corporation putting it up for sale.
Enter Rupert Murdoch. He had recently acquired the News Of The World and was looking to add a daily as a stable mate.
The Daily Herald had been a Labour-supporting newspaper and Murdoch vowed to retain its political allegiance, appointing socialist Larry Lamb as its first editor.
But that all changed in the late 1970s when the James Callaghan government stumbled from one crisis to the next.
The Sun switched sides in the run-up to the 1979 election and left its readers in no doubt that it thought they should do the same.
'Vote Tory This Time' was its unequivocal headline and the public duly did so, giving Margaret Thatcher a landslide election win.
Kelvin McKenzie became editor in 1981 and remained loyal to the Conservatives throughout Mrs Thatcher's premiership in the 1980s.
Notably, it supported the government during the Miners' Strike and, later in the decade, the introduction of the poll tax which would effectively bring to an end the Thatcher era.
The 1980s would also feature a circulation war between The Sun and The Daily Mirror with price cuts and an emphasis on brash headlines.
The battle with The Daily Mirror explains, partly at least, why The Sun became more jingoistic than previously.
On the sinking of Argentine gunboat Belgrano during the Falklands War, 'Gotcha' was the front-page headline.
Labour leaders Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock were lampooned mercilessly alongside other figures on the Left of British politics.
Mr Foot was judged as being too old before the 1983 election but The Sun supported the re-election of conservative Ronald Reagan to the US Presidency a year later.
This was despite the fact that President Reagan was two years older than Mr Foot.
During the Miners' Strike, The Sun prepared a front-page with a photograph which made Trade Union leader Arthur Scargill look like he was doing Nazi salute.
The printers, in disgust, refused to publish it. But they would be the next victims when Murdoch moved the paper to Wapping and nearly all of them lost their jobs.
On the back pages, England football manager Bobby Robson also suffered as a result of the tabloid war with false allegations about his private life.
After a 0-0 draw with Saudi Arabia in the build-up to World Cup 1990, the paper pleaded, 'In The Name Of Allah, Go!' Robson would lead England to the semi-finals.
His successor Graham Taylor got an even worse press as an ageing England team struggled at the Euro 92 finals and failed to qualify for World Cup 1994.
After failing to beat Sweden in 1992, Taylor was branded a 'turnip'. His face was super-imposed on a picture of a turnip on account he could not beat the Swedes, a pun on the other root vegetable.
It was an image which stuck in the mind of the public and, undoubtedly, it dealt a blow to Taylor's reputation for the rest of his time in charge.
But McKenzie's most shameful football moment came in 1989 when, under the headline 'The Truth', The Sun reported on the tragic events at Hillsborough Stadium.
It blamed Liverpool fans for causing a crush which killed 92 people and accused the fans of robbing the victims and preventing them from receiving help even though the opposite was true.
The Sun's sales figures on Liverpool have never recovered since, even when the paper hit its record high circulation in November 1995 of 4.8 million copies.
The birth of the Internet and 24-hour news broadcasts put an end to those kinds of figures. But The Sun remains powerful in political circles.
After its switch in 1979 and the successful prediction in 1992 that John Major would gain an unlikely election victory, The Sun has always liked to look as if it is backing a winner.
In the run up to the 1997 election, New Labour director of communication Alastair Campbell held meetings with Murdoch to ensure Tony Blair would get the paper's endorsement.
Like Mrs Thatcher 18 years before him, Mr Blair was elected by a landslide.
Mr Blair retained The Sun's support throughout his premiership as he disgruntled many in his party faithful by mainly pursuing Thatcherite policies such as privatisation.
More recently, of course, The Sun has returned to supporting the Conservatives at the next election with the front-page headline 'Labour's Lost It'.
This is a recognition that Mr Blair's replacement Gordon Brown is looking as beleaguered a figure as Mr Major in 1997 and The Sun dare not risk supporting him.
Their move is still a risk - there are months until election day and polls suggest that the public remain somewhat sceptical of David Cameron's Conservatives.
A recent attempt by The Sun to smear Mr Brown's sincerity towards the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan also back-fired.
The story came about after Mr Brown wrote an untidy letter with several spelling mistakes to a recently bereaved family of a soldier.
But most people have felt it unreasonable to criticise the PM for his poor handwriting on account of his poor eyesight and indeed praised him for his sincerity in writing to each of the bereaved soldiers' families personally.
So... political flip-flopping, jingoism, fabrication, smears. How does The Sun remain so popular?
Well, I think personally that it remains an entertaining read. In particular, it has continued its tradition of memorable headlines in recent years.
'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Korea' when North Korea tested a nuclear weapon and 'Super Cally Go Ballistic, Celtic are Atrocious' when Inverness beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup stick out.
Also, many of its mainly male readership will buy the paper for its extensive football coverage, and some others just to ogle at Page 3, rather than its right-wing political coverage.
Its status as Britain's biggest-selling daily is in some ways self-fulfilling as PR firms flock to get their celebrity client an interview or their book serialised.
This has become particularly evident since the advent and subsequent popularity of telly talent contest such as the X Factor and Britain's Got Talent.
To its credit, The Sun provides unmatched offers to its readers with the most famous being the annual £9.50 holiday giveaways.
Campaigns such as the Help For Heroes charity and the long-running Free Books for Schools also hit a public note.
Finally, its website is now much-improved from the untidy effort with which it began.
Figures showing that there were 22,994,391 unique users in the month of September are a testament to its improvement.
That puts it in fourth place in the increasingly important battle for online readership, behind The Mail, The Guardian and The Telegraph.
Now, to see if Murdoch's next move will pay off - a plan to charge readers a fee for reading online news on News International websites.
The surprising result of a study by the Boston Consulting Group shows that apparently 48% of the public would be willing to pay.
But I remain sceptical that The Sun, or indeed The Times, is popular enough for that.
Surely, readers would just go elsewhere.
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