U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for May 26: Sour Notes

WASHINGTON, May 26, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

SOUR NOTES

Profile America — Friday, May 26th. Spam, the pork product in a can, debuted in 1937, and World War II spread its fame, such as it is, around the globe. Spam, the unsolicited email message, debuted this month in 1978, and the World Wide Web has spread its infamy everywhere. The first cyber-spam was an invitation to a computer system demonstration sent to the few existing email addresses over ARPANET, the internet's precursor. Almost 16 years later, commercial spam first coursed through the Web. In April 1994, a pair of Arizona lawyers advertised their services to thousands of Usenet groups. At the time, only about a quarter of U.S. households had personal computers. Now, over 85 percent are so equipped, and 80 percent access the internet. Profile America is beginning its 21st year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Sources:
Robertson's Book of Firsts, pages 249-251
Spam luncheon meat story/accessed 2/24/2017:
www.eater.com/2014/7/9/6191681/a-brief-history-of-spam-an-american-meat-icon 
First WWW spam/accessed 2/24/2017: www.wired.com/1999/04/the-spam-that-started-it-all/ 
Home computer timeline/page 2: www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-569.pdf 
Computer and internet usage: www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2016/comm/digital_nation.html

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Audio" in the "Library" pull-down menu). 

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

Related Links

http://www.census.gov

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