Every year we rely on technology more and more for our every day activities. At present time, there are more than 100 billion emails that are being sent each day. In fact, in the time it took you to read this sentence, 220 million emails were written.
And we’re not slowing down.
It’s estimated that 2 billion people have access to the internet and actively use it, and every month that number continues to grow. Let's take a look back at how part of this got started.--the history of Email
1971: In the 1970s. it is believed that U.S. programmer Raymond Tomlinson sent the first network email. So what did it say? “QWERTYUIOP” was the first message. He was also the first to connect his computer to his mailbox by using an “@” symbol. Tomlinson observed some years later that email was not an "invention", but an amalgamation of technology that developed over time: "Any single development is stepping on the heels of the previous one and is so closely followed by the next that most advances are obscured. I think that few individuals will be remembered."
1974: There were hundreds of military users sending emails.
1977: Notably, Tomlinson’s emailing method worked only for networked computers that were using the same software/ By 1977, many people began using the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPA) to connect to outside networks.
1985: By 1985 many upper level professionals were sending email. For example, government and military employees, students and academic professionals were all common users (though the practice was not terribly widespread).
1991: ISPs allow widespread Internet access, but there were limited options for use until Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web in 1991.
1998: “Spam” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary after its growth in the mid-1990s.
1991: Astronauts Shannon Lucid and James C. Adamson sent the first email from space on a Macintosh Portable: “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here,...send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby,...we'll be back!”
1993: IDM and BellSouth marketed the first PDA-functioning 20-ounce cellphone, which sold for $900 and served as a phone, calculator, fax, email device and pager.
1997: Microsoft purchased Hotmail for approximately $400 million.
2004: President George W. Bush signed the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 into law, which gained criticism for its lack of action against spammers.
2011: A study finds the worst email passwords are password and 123456. Others worthy of note: QWERTY, monkey and letmein. The password 123456 was also found to be the most common password during a 2012 email hack.
2012: There are more than 3 billion email accounts across the globe, and some 100 to 394 billion emails are sent per day. Unfortunately, some 78% of them are spam.
Want more information? Check out the infograph here.
Share This Article