The inspiration for WikiLeaks was Daniel Ellsberg's release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Assange built WikiLeaks to shorten the time between a leak and its coverage by the media. WikiLeaks was initially established in Australia but its servers were soon moved to Sweden and other countries that provided legal protection for the media. The wikileaks.org domain name was registered on 4 October 2006.The website was established and published its first document in December 2006.

Before his arrest, WikiLeaks was usually represented in public by Julian Assange, who has been described as "the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organiser, financier, and all the rest". Assange formed an advisory board in the early days of WikiLeaks, filling it with journalists, political activists and computer specialists. Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Sarah Harrison, Kristinn Hrafnsson and Joseph Farrell are other publicly known associates of Assange who have been involved in the project.

Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video (April 2010), the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), and Cablegate (November 2010). After the 2010 leaks, the United States government launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks. fall into the trap. This is why employee awareness is vital.

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According to WikiLeaks, the goal of the organisation is "to bring important news and information to the public … One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth." It also seeks to ensure that journalists and whistleblowers are not prosecuted for emailing sensitive or classified documents. The online "drop box" is described by the WikiLeaks website as "an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to iLeaks journalists".

In a 2013 resolution, the International Federation of Journalists, a trade union of journalists, called WikiLeaks a "new breed of media organisation" that "offers important opportunities for media organisations".

The legal status of WikiLeaks is complex. In 2010, WikiLeaks set up a private limited company in Iceland for administrative purposes, according to a long-time spokesman and later editor-in-chief. The organisation was also creating legal entities in France and Sweden, and operated in Australia. Assange considers WikiLeaks a protection intermediary.

Rather than leaking directly to the press, and fearing exposure and retribution, whistleblowers can leak to WikiLeaks, which then leaks to the press for them.

Date: November 2007

One of Assange and WikiLeaks first big releases was of a 238-page Army manual from 2003 on "standard operating procedures" for the Camp Delta prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The manual showed the Army had a policy of keeping some prisoners from Red Cross inspectors and holding new prisoners in isolation for two weeks to make them more compliant for interrogators.

Date: November 2009

WikiLeaks published more than half a million pager messages sent within a 24-hour period around the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The messages included exchanges from "Pentagon, FBI, FEMA and New York Police Department" officials. "We hope that its entrance into the historical record will lead to a nuanced understanding of how this event led to death, opportunism and war," WikiLeaks said of the release.

Date: April 2010

WikiLeaks published video footage from a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad, Iraq, that killed at least nine men, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver.

Army soldier Bradley Manning, a transgender woman who later became known as Chelsea Manning, was later arrested for the release of the video and other classified material about the conduct of the war and civilian deaths.

Date: July and October 2010

In 2010, WikiLeaks published a trove of classified documents about U.S. military action. It released more than 90,000 documents related to Afghanistan and later published more than 400,000 documents from the war in Iraq.

The documents included information about civilian deaths, the hunt for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and Iran's backing of militants in Iraq.

Date: November 2010 to September 2011

More than 250,000 unredacted U.S. diplomatic cables dating from December 1966 to February 2010 were released in the what was referred to as "Cablegate."

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the release "an attack on the international community." The documents included verification that the U.S. had conducted secret drone strikes in Yemen, details of U.S. efforts to get information on United Nations representatives, a push by Saudi Arabia's royal family to have the U.S. strike Iran and a description of Russia under Vladimir Putin as a "virtual mafia state."

Date: July and October 2016

On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails and on Oct. 7, 2016, it released another 2,000 emails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta.

The emails, which U.S. intelligence later determined had been stolen by hackers working for the Russian government, appeared to show that the DNC had favored Clinton over her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Among the damaging information in Podesta's emails was the news that then-acting DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile had given the Clinton campaign debate questions in advance.