google has put up a neat little timeline of some significant events according to usenet. some notable ones i’ve enjoyed are:

• aug 1982 – first mention of apple’s lisa and macintosh products
• nov 1982 – first reference to emoticons
• feb 1989 – first mention of irc
• aug 1991 – tim berners-lee’s announcement of the world wide web project
• oct 1991 – linus torvalds’ linux announcement
• jan 1992 – famous debate between andy tanenbaum and linus lorvalds (long! but fun to read)
• may 1992 – first post from an aol account

there are many others that you can check out.

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