TASS, the Russian News Agency, was founded in 1902 as the Commercial Telegraph Agency (TTA) under the Ministry of Finance. Over the years, it went through several name changes and organizational restructurings, eventually becoming the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) in 1925. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the agency was renamed the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS) and then reverted to its current name, TASS, in 2014. Today, TASS is owned by the Russian government. TASS covers a wide range of news topics, including politics, economics, sports, culture, and more. The agency has a global reach, with 70 offices in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), as well as 68 bureaus around the world. TASS is headquartered in Moscow and is considered one of the largest and most influential news agencies in Russia. **One interesting fact**: TASS has a long history of employing foreign correspondents and maintaining a global network of bureaus. At the height of the Soviet era, TASS had over 94 bureaus around the world, allowing it to report on international events and provide a Soviet perspective to audiences outside the Eastern Bloc. This extensive global reach was unusual for a state-controlled media outlet during the Cold War period.