A folio sheet of paper printed on one side only, intended to be read aloud in public or pasted up in a public place, often consisting of ballad verses meant to be sung to a currently popular tune, and generally treating of current events in an informative, celebratory, or satiric manner, depending on the social views of those who paid to have it written and printed. Broadsides were often the primary form of access to news among the common people in the streets of London. Popular from the 16th to early 19th century.

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