It was founded on October 24, 1961, by , a wealthy owner linked to the banking and insurance business. For this purpose, the company
Periodística Perú S. A. was established. In this first stage, its editors were Manuel Jesús Orbegoso, Raúl Villarán, José Antonio Encinas de Pando, among others. In 1965, it was acquired by
Manuel Ulloa Elías, who founded
Editora Nacional S. A. The same company published the evening newspaper ''
. In this new stage, and Guillermo Cortez Núñez were editors-in-chief. Among his collaborators were Ciro Alegría, , Manuel Mujica Gallo and Mario Vargas Llosa. A Sunday supplement entitled Estampas
was also published; and as a contribution to education, the supplement El Escolar''. With the rise of a
military government in 1968, difficulties began. On October 31 of that year,
Expreso and
Extra were closed by order of the regime of General
Juan Velasco Alvarado. However, a protest by the Federation of Journalists of Peru forced the Government to allow the newspapers to reopen. On January 2, 1970, Manuel Ulloa resigned as president of the board of directors of Editora Nacional S. A. because a Government decree prevented those who resided outside the country for more than six months from exercising such function. After the fall of Fujimori, the imprisonment of the newspaper's director, , was ordered, accused of having received, together with Vicente Silva Checa (director of ''''), more than
US$ 3,000,000 from presidential advisor
Vladimiro Montesinos. In 2002, a new organization came into operation under the direction of Luis García Miró, whose objective was to recover the prestige of the newspaper. Since 2024, the director is Antonio Ramírez Pando. ==See also==