Electronic mail, or the sending of messages via computer, was the very first application for networked computers. Invented in 1971, electronic mail, or email as it is commonly called, was the offspring of a project started in 1969 by the U.S. Department of Defense. This project was designed to connect vital organizations together in case of any normal communications failure. The Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, used telephone lines to link the computers of defense contractors, university researchers, and military personnel. This "network" of computers was called ARPANET. ARPANET slowly grew and grew to become the Internet. The application these scientists developed to communicate with each other was email.

The technology behind email has changed little since its invention. The content on the other hand is radically different. In the early years of email, transmissions were limited to small squibs of text that could be sent...