Although this may not be something most people want to celebrate, it does mark an iconic moment in history: On May 3, 1978, the first ever spam email was sent.
Before the real internet was even born and people were using ARPAnet to connect, Digital Equipment Corp. marketer Gary Thuerk blasted a sales message to 400 of the 2,600 users on ARPAnet at the time. However annoying Thuerk’s message was — which was about a new series of computers — he did receive some interested recipients, although mostly a negative response. Most importantly though, Thuerk’s unsolicited mass email spearheaded one of the most loathed components of email today: spam. (Although he was dubbed the father of spam, he would insist on thinking of himself “as the father of e-marketing.”
And as much as we don’t like it, we can’t ignore it — it’s something most of us experience on a daily basis. So feelings aside, check out these interesting spam facts:
1. Spam (email) was added to The New Oxford Dictionary of English in 1998. Before, only the meat product was recognized as the word’s definition. The new definition is: “irrelevant or…