When was the first email sent?

The first recognized email was sent in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, an engineer working at BBN (Bolt, Beranek and Newman) on the ARPANET, the precursor to the modern internet. He adapted two existing programs, SNDMSG (for local messages) and CPYNET (a file transfer protocol), to send the first true networked email between two computers that were side by side but connected through the network. That message itself, he later recalled, was insignificant, something like "QWERTYUIOP" or "Testing 123." What mattered was that it worked.

That moment marked the first time a message crossed digital waters from one machine to another, laying the foundation for the global mail routes we use today.