History Websites

News item about the death, in 2001, of Jim Ellis, who helped create Usenet.

What the Great Renaming was, who did it, and what hierarchies were removed and created.

Documents the ancient process to create, rename, remove, or change the moderation status of newsgroups in the Big Eight hierarchies. Currently, the management is done by the Big-8.org team. Written by Russ Allbery

Hosts articles from 1981 and 1982, which means long before the Great Renaming, for historical purposes.

A Usenet post by Gene Spafford, archived 9 February 1998 by the Institute of Information and Computing Sciences. A useful historical summary, particularly in terms of the software used for usenet.

An eyewitness account and timeline of the start of "meowing" on usenet. Newsgroup invasions, large numbers of posts, net kooks.

Shows Usenet, updated in real time as it was thirty years ago.

Brad Templeton recalls the early days of the Internet and the rise of Usenet.