Kuan-ming Lin
GS 200A homework (commented by Diane Bryson)
Sep. 26, 2004. All Rights Reserved.

  The History of Newsgroups*

  Newsgroups, or Usenet newsgroups, are electronic repositories where
  individuals post messages of various topics for others to read and
  respond to. In 1979, two computer science graduate students in Duke
  established the first newsgroups to allow individuals to discuss
  virtually any topic without restriction. At that time, there were fewer
  than 100 newsgroups, categorized into three hierarchies (<net.>, <mod.>, and
  <fa.>). In 1987, with the swift growth of newsgroups, a need for
  reorganizing the hierarchical structure arose. As a consequence, the
  Great Renaming restructuring took place where the new Big Seven
  hierarchies (<comp.>, <misc.>, <news.>, <rec.>, <sci.>, <soc.>, and 
  <talk.>) were constructed. Shortly after the Renaming, an additional
  hierarchy called alt. was created, which was meant to be absolutely free
  from the regulations of the Big Seven. In 1995, due to the new
  <humanities.> hierarchy, the Big Seven became the Big Eight. Today, in
  addition to tens of thousands "Big Eight plus <alt.>" newsgroups, more
  hierarchies are created in regional or corporate newsgroups servers,
  which enriches the coverage of newsgroups to almost all human conceivable
  topics. 

*Reference: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/