Rupert Murdoch was born in 1931 in Australia and became the managing director of a newspaper there at a young age before becoming the director of News International. He acquired newspapers in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK in the 1950s and 1960s, taking over News of the World and launching The Sun. In the 1970s and 1980s, Murdoch expanded into the US market, buying The Times and becoming a US citizen, building a vast media empire across several countries.