Email’s history is filled with ground-breaking technologies and interesting stories, with plenty of major milestones hit along the way. If you’re interested in learning more about how email became the primary communication service that we know, and are familiar with today, then keep reading to find out more.
The Invention of Email
Most people will credit Ray Tomlinson with the invention of e mom phone number data mail in 1971. He first came up with the idea of email while working for a government-funded research project, ARPANET, which would eventually become the internet. At that time, it was only possible to leave messages from somebody else if you were using the same computer. Tomlinson created a program that allowed users to send messages between different computers connected to the ARPANET system. Some of his contributions to email are still around today, including the use of the @ symbol in email addresses. In 2016, Ray Tomlinson passed away, but he lived to see his idea become something that the world would now struggle to live without.
In 1976, email was used by the first head of state, Queen Elizabeth II. She used the ARPANET electronic mail program when visiting the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment. She was given the username ‘HME2’. The same year, Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign became the first to use email.
By 1978, spam emails had become a thing. It didn’t take very long for somebody to figure out a way they could earn money through email. The ‘father of spam’, Gary Thurek, sent an unsolicited email marketing message to hundreds of ARPANET users, promoting a new Digital Equipment Corporation product, for which he claimed the email earned him $13m in sales.
When was Email Invented?
While Roy Tomlinson often gets the credit for inventing email, there is a long-standing debate regarding who invented it. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai says that as a fourteen-year-old, he created a program that is the true first version of email. It was called ‘EMAIL’ and was an interoffice software program designed for the University of Medicine and Dentistry. Although it’s highly contested that he was actually the inventor of email, it is possible that he came up with the term that we all know today.
