Its founder, Henry White, chose the name apparently in an attempt to take advantage of the success of The Observer, which had been founded in 1791, although there was no connection between the two papers.

The "Business" section was launched on 27 September 1964, making The Sunday Times Britain's first regular three-section newspaper.

On November 17, 1972, the Queen's Bench Divisional Court issued an injunction to prevent The Sunday Times from publishing further articles, as it was feared that the paper's campaign might affect ongoing lawsuits over the ensuing scandal.

[citation needed] TNL was plagued by a series of industrial disputes at its plant at Gray's Inn Road in London, with the print unions resisting attempts to replace the old-fashioned hot-metal and labour-intensive Linotype method with technology that would allow the papers to be composed digitally.

Evans tried to organise a management buyout of The Sunday Times, but Thomson decided instead to sell to Rupert Murdoch, who he thought had a better chance of dealing with the trade unions.

Murdoch, an Australian who in 1985 became a naturalised American citizen, already owned The Sun and the News of the World, but the Conservative government decided not to refer the deal to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, citing a clause in the Fair Trading Act that exempted uneconomic businesses from referral.

The Thomson Corporation had threatened to close the papers down if they were not taken over by someone else within an allotted time, and it was feared that any legal delay to Murdoch's takeover might lead to the two titles' demise.

Its scoops included the revelation in 1986 that Israel had manufactured more than 100 nuclear warheads[18] and the publication in 1992 of extracts from Andrew Morton's book, Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words.

[citation needed] In January 1986, after the announcement of a strike by print workers, production of The Sunday Times, along with other newspapers in the group, was shifted to a new plant in Wapping, and the strikers were dismissed.

The plant, which allowed journalists to input copy directly, was activated with the help of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU).

[21] Articles and editorials in The Sunday Times cast doubt on the scientific consensus, described HIV as a "politically correct virus" about which there was a "conspiracy of silence", disputed that AIDS was spreading in Africa, claimed that tests for HIV were invalid, described the HIV/AIDS treatment drug AZT as harmful, and characterized the WHO as an "Empire-building AIDS [organisation]".

[21] In response to this, The Sunday Times published an article headlined "AIDS – why we won't be silenced", which claimed that Nature engaged in censorship and "sinister intent".

I do not blame doctors and the Aids lobby for warning that everybody might be at risk in the early days, when ignorance was rife and reliable evidence scant."

Technology coverage was expanded in 2000 with the weekly colour magazine "Doors", and in 2003 "The Month", an editorial section presented as an interactive CD-ROM.

[citation needed] Colvin, who worked for the paper from 1985, was killed in February 2012 by Syrian forces while covering the siege of Homs during that country's civil war.

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown accused The Sunday Times of employing "known criminals" to impersonate him and obtain his private financial records.

[67] The Sunday Times vigorously denied these accusations and said that the story was in the public interest and that it had followed the Press Complaints Commission code on using subterfuge.

"[69] In January 2010, The Sunday Times published an article by Jonathan Leake, alleging that a figure in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report was based on an "unsubstantiated claim".

[71][72] In September 2012, Jonathan Leake published an article in The Sunday Times under the headline "Only 100 adult cod in North Sea".

[75] In 1992, the paper agreed to pay David Irving, an author widely criticised for Holocaust denial, the sum of £75,000 to authenticate the Goebbels diaries and edit them for serialisation.

[citation needed] In January 2013, The Sunday Times published a Gerald Scarfe caricature depicting Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cementing a wall with blood and Palestinians trapped between the bricks.

The cartoon sparked an outcry, compounded by the fact that its publication coincided with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League.

[77] After Rupert Murdoch tweeted that he considered it a "grotesque, offensive cartoon" and that Scarfe had "never reflected the opinions of The Sunday Times"[78] the newspaper issued an apology.

[79] Journalist Ian Burrell, writing in The Independent, described the apology as an "indication of the power of the Israel lobby in challenging critical media coverage of its politicians" and one that questions Rupert Murdoch's assertion that he does not "interfere in the editorial content of his papers".

[80] In July 2017, Kevin Myers wrote a column in The Sunday Times saying "I note that two of the best-paid women presenters in the BBC – Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz, with whose, no doubt, sterling work I am tragically unacquainted – are Jewish.

He continued "Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity.

[81] The Republic of Ireland edition of The Sunday Times was launched on a small scale in 1993 with just two staff: Alan Ruddock and John Burns (who started as financial correspondent for the newspaper and is at present acting associate editor).

[84][85] The paper is heavily editionalised, with extensive Irish coverage of politics, general news, business, personal finance, sport, culture and lifestyle.

The paper also has a number of well-known freelance columnists including Brenda Power, Liam Fay, Matt Cooper, Damien Kiberd, Jill Kerby and Stephen Price.