First email sent from China

From Wiki China org cn

On September 20, 1982, Professor Qian Tianbai sent an email to University of Karlsruhe in West Germany, connecting China to the Internet for the first time in history. Even in Europe, the Internet was quite new at that time. It had been introduced to Western Europe only four years before and West Germany was connected just two years previously.

In November, the same year, Professor Qian was invited to attend an international conference on computer technology and networks held in Princeton, U.S. He addressed the conference about the development of the Internet in China.

Professor Qian was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province and graduated from Tsinghua University. He headed the China branch of the Internet Society in the Asia-Pacific region. He was also the deputy director of the Work Committee of the China Internet Network Information Center. He died from a heart attack at the age of 53 in Beijing on May 8, 1998.