26 March 18

On this date in 1976, Queen Elizabeth II became the first head of state to send an email message. The network at the time was called ARPANET and it was designed primarily to serve military communications. Her email account was set up with the username "HME2" (for Her Majesty Elizabeth II). In her message she announced that the Coral 66 programming language was available on ARPANET! I'm including a photo of this royal inauguration. My tie celebrates email, personal computers and the Internet.


26 March, 1976: