'Tidings' is Old English for 'happenings' — from 'tidan' (to happen). Events that have occurred.
News; information about recent events.
From Old English 'tīdung' (event, piece of news, tidings — literally 'a happening'), from the verb 'tīdan' (to happen, to befall, to come to pass), from 'tīd' (time, period, season, a set division of time), from Proto-Germanic *tīdiz (time, division), from PIE *deh₂i- (to divide, to cut — time being that which is divided into portions). The OE verb 'tīdan' meant 'to happen in time' — events were conceived as things that arrived in their allotted portion of time. 'Tidings' are therefore literally 'timings' — the happenings that fell
German 'Zeitung' (newspaper) is a cognate of English 'tidings' — both from the same Germanic root meaning 'a happening in time.' English 'tidings' stayed as a general word for news, while German 'Zeitung' specialized as the word for a printed newspaper. The phrase 'glad tidings' in the King James