Note well: all claims listed here are subject to further review. Caveat emptor!
Corrections & amendments most welcome.
See "20 Year Archive on Google Groups" for other highlights.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1979 | Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis Usenet invent a method of sharing news. |
| 1980 | Usenet, Usenix, UUCP developed as "the poor man's ARPANET." |
| 1981 | net.news split off from net.general to discuss new newsgroups. |
| 1982 | Mark Horton creates net.news.group. |
| 1983 | Mark Horton creates net.announce, the first moderated newsgroup. |
| 1983 | Gene Spafford (Spaf)] organizes the backbone. |
| 1984 | Is the death of the net coming in September? |
| 1984 | Development of newspaths improves moderation (B News 2.11). |
| 1986-87 | The Great Renaming: The Big Seven organized. Roots of the voting system planted. |
| 1986 | net.news.group renamed news.groups. |
| 1987 | alt.* groups formed. |
| 1987 | First Guidelines for Creation: Spafford, Horton, Adams, Woods, Fair as backbone admins. |
| 1988 | Spaf kills the backbone (The Cabal). |
| 1989 | news.announce.newgroups created (Greg Woods-->Eliot Lear-->tale, 1989-1991). |
| 1989 | April Fools Called Off. |
| 1992 | Kibo proposes HappyNet. |
| 1993 | The September That Never Ended. |
| 1993 | Formation of Usenet Volunteer Votetakers (UVV) under Ron "Asbestos" Dippold. |
| 1993 | Spaf burns out, says good-bye. |
| 1993 | tale (David C. Lawrence) takes over Checkgroups from Spaf; Mark Moraes inherited other lists. |
| 1995 | New humanities hierarchy created by a vote of 508:97. The Big Seven becomes the Big Eight. |
| 1996 | tale creates the PGP key used by news.announce.newgroups moderators (1996-04-10). |
| 1997 | Usenet II proposed. Usenet II home page. |
| 1998 | HappyNet updated. |
| 2001 | Google's 20-year retrospective of Usenet History. |
| 2001 | Jim Ellis, RIP. |
| Oct. 13, 2002 | Russ Allbery, Todd McComb, and piranha succeed tale. |
| 2005 | Old newsgroup creation system suspended. Eleven people tagged to work on a new system. |
| March 2006 | Big-8.org opens for business. skirv preserves one-syllable tradition. |
| Oct. 1, 2006 | Big-8 Management Board confirmed by previous n.a.n. moderators. |
| Oct. 2, 2006 | Death of Usenet. Film at 11. |
