The Sun Page Three Girls: A Turbulent History

As the era of topless models on Page 3 of the Sun comes to an end, here are some key facts about the 44-year-old newspaper feature.

HISTORY

:: Sun editor Larry Lamb introduced topless models to page three on 17 November,1970, less than a year after Rupert Murdoch bought the newspaper.

:: The popularity of Page 3 in the 1970s is widely thought to have helped increase The Sun's circulation and make the title one of Britain's biggest-selling newspapers.

:: The newspaper trialled a 'Page 7 Fella' in the 1980s but the feature did not catch on.

:: When Rebekah Brooks became The Sun's first female editor in 2003 there was speculation that the Page 3 Girls would be scrapped. But on her first day as editor the Page 3 Girl was Rebekah Parmar-Teasdale and her picture was captioned: "Rebekah from Wapping".

:: There have been occasions when The Sun has moved the topless models to further down the newspaper, including when Margaret Thatcher died, during the conclusion of the murder trial of five-year-old April Jones and during Britain's gold medal achievements in the London 2012 Olympics.

:: The enormity of news events such as 9/11 and the Lockerbie disaster led to the feature being temporarily dropped altogether.

TOPLESS WOMEN

:: The first Page 3 Girl was 20-year-old German supermodel Stephanie Rahn, also known as Stephanie Marrian.

:: Up until 2003 Page 3 could feature topless models aged 16 and 17 but then the legal minimum age in the UK was raised to 18.

:: Successful Page 3 Girls could earn more than £100,000 a year. A semi-successful one would typically earn £30,000-£40,000 a year.

:: Glamour models who have appeared on Page 3 and gone on to be famous include: Katie Price (Jordan), Melinda Messenger, Samantha Fox and Geri Halliwell.

:: Lissy Cunningham, 20 and from Manchester, looks set to be the paper's last Page 3 model, appearing on Friday 16 January, 2015.

CONTROVERSY

:: Over the years the Sun has faced pressure from anti-sexism campaigners, student bodies and politicians, including Labour MPs Harriet Harman and Clare Short, to drop its Page 3 topless models. They claim the feature is sexist.

:: The campaign group No More Page 3 was founded in August 2012 by actress Lucy-Anne Holmes. It has support from a wide variety of groups such as Girlguiding UK, Mumsnet, several trade unions including Unison, the Scottish Parliament and Breast Cancer UK.

:: The topless Page 3 models were scrapped from Irish editions of The Sun in August 2013.

:: In January 2015 the Sun appeared to bow to its critics and stop publishing pictures of topless models on Page 3 .