Happy Spam Day
While Spam (electronic not meat) has been tracked as far back as 1971, the first major USENET spam was sent on January 18, 1994. So Happy Spam day everybody!
A little history, courtesy of this very informative page about the origin of Spam:
The first major USENET spam came on January 18 of 1994. Every single newsgroup found in it a religious screed declaring: Global Alert for All: Jesus is Coming Soon.This one caused a ton of debate and controversy. The Andrews University sysadmin (Clarence Thomas, no relation) who sent it generated a flurry of complaints against his institution and some press, though reportedly he never got more than a mild punishment at the time. He did however eventually leave the University, but was also known to have done some more minor religious spams at later dates.
Normally in USENET you can post a message to more than one newsgroup using the "crossposting" mechanism. The advantage with this is that the message only goes out once, and people who read both newsgroups only see it once. This feature is highly useful if not abused, yet most major conferencing systems never implemented it.
However, it was not practical to crosspost to every single newsgroup, nor desired. Still, this event provided a button at the USENIX Unix conference saying "Jesus is coming and he doesn't know how to crosspost."
One of the most annoying things about this message was that not only did you see it again, and again, for every newsgroup you read, but it also showed up as the only message of the day in newsgroups that had low traffic levels. Most people like their low traffic newsgrous with low traffic, and this posting and others like it would soon spoil that serenity.
I think we should all take a moment and remember how Spam has enriched our lives. I mean, my day wouldn't be complete without an offer for viagra or a chance to get my hands on some money left by a Nigerian king.
So everyone, forward your favorite Spam message to all your friends in celebration of Spam's special day.