1 1970s

Late 1971: Ray Tomlinson invented internet based email

1974: There were hundreds of military users of email because ARPANET eventually encouraged it.

1975: John Vital developed some software to organize email.

2 1980s

1988: Steve Dorner invents Eudora, an application that gave a popular face to email by providing a graphical user interface for email management

1989: The first release of Lotus Notes email software. 35,000 copies are sold in the first year.

1989: Aol Launches its first software for internet and email.

3 1990s

1996: Microsoft releases Internet Mail and News 1.0, a feature of its third release of Internet Explorer. This is later renamed Outlook.

1996:  HotMaiL was launched as the first web-based email service.

1997: Yahoo! Mail Launches

1997: About 10 million users worldwide have free web mail accounts.

1998: Microsoft buys Hotmail for \$400 million.

4 2000s

2004: Google introduces Gmail to the public.

2007: Google overtakes all other email providers and continues to grow.