Anyone born in the 1990s finds it difficult to imagine: a world without the Internet. A world without email . But what seems like a twisted science fiction story was reality not so long ago. Both were invented in the 1970s and 1980s and only became available to the masses in the 1990s . The inventor of email and the @ sign, Raymond Tomlinson, died at the weekend at the age of 74. In memory of this man who had a lasting impact on all of our lives, here are 10 things you should know about email:
Email Fact #1
The first email was written in 1971. Tomlinson used the US government's Arpanet computer network to do this. Unfortunately, we no longer know what the text of that first message was.
Email Fact #2
email, email, email, email, email or email? Everyone writes it differently, but according to Duden, only the last spelling is correct: email.
Email Fact #3
The first email reached Germany in August 1984. The recipient was Michael Rotert from the University of Karlsruhe. The email welcomed Rotert to an international communication network for scientists. His email address was: rotert@germany
Email Fact #4
Around 205.6 billion emails are sent worldwide every day. Of these, around 112.5 billion are business emails and 93.1 billion are private emails. The spam proportion is around 50%.
Email Fact #5
An unencrypted email is about as secure as a postcard.
Email Fact #6
Since 2007, an imprint requirement has applied to commercial emails in Germany.
Email Fact #7
The word spam is English and means “waste”. According to an urban legend, the use of the word for spam emails dates back to a Monty Python sketch.
Email Fact #8
In German and English the @ sign is simply called “at”, other languages are more creative. For example, in Dutch it is called “apestaart” (monkey tail) and in Italian “chicciolina” (little snail).
Email Fact #9
The @ sign was first used by monks in the Middle Ages as an abbreviation to save space.
Email Fact #10
Homer Simpson email address chunkylover53@aol.com was activated in 2003 and maintained by an author of the series. At some point the flood of emails became too large and was deactivated. Unfortunately, it was then hacked and used to send malware.
