20 Year Usenet Timeline

20 Year Archive on Google Groups

Google has fully integrated the past 20 years of Usenet archives into Google Groups, which now offers access to more than 800 million messages dating back to 1981. This is by far the most complete collection of Usenet articles ever assembled and a fascinating first-hand historical account.

We compiled some especially memorable articles and threads in the timeline below. For example, read Tim Berners-Lee's announcement of what became the World Wide Web or Linus Torvalds' post about his "pet project". You can find more in-depth information about the archive here.

From 1981 till 2001: threads or articles with the first mention about IBM-PC, MTV, Madonna, Search Engine, "Friends" and Google. And for Douglas Adams fans, his first post on alt.fan.douglas-adams. (via Bloglines Top Links)