23/04/2026
Happy Birthday to a Pioneer of Connectivity — Ray Tomlinson, born April 23, 1941.
In 1971, Tomlinson sent the first email between two computers on ARPANET. He chose the @ symbol to separate username from machine name. A decision that took about a minute, now encoded in 4 billion email addresses worldwide.
The first email? He couldn't remember what it said. He was testing software, not making history.
Today, 330 billion emails are sent every day using the system he built in a few weeks, on a part-time programming job, at BBN in Cambridge.
Full story: https://blog.immunitynetworks.com/ray-tomlinson-the-man-who-invented-email-and-chose-the-at-symbol/