The first Corner post was written on Wednesday, January 23, 2002, at 11:27 p.m. by Jonah Goldberg on a train bound for Washington, D.C., and was posted at 6:12 a.m. the following day. Thus, on Thursday, January 24, 2002, The Corner was born, although few knew exactly what NRO’s original group blog was at the time. As Goldberg wrote in that first post, “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. The first video on MTV was ‘Video Killed the Radio Star,’ so I feel like I should say something symbolic and momentous. But then again, this whole thing may tank faster than Steven Bochco’s Cop Rock, in which case symbolism and momentousness would be a bad idea.”

The Corner never did tank, and in short time became a web-leading source of real-time conservative opinion, or as Goldberg described it in 2010, a “home for Volcano-Lancing news, congressional handicapping, arguments about American exceptionalism and updates on the Islamification of Europe.”