The Internet has become such an important part of our everyday lives that most of us have a hard time imagining life without it. It is therefore mind-boggling to think that this technology is only 40 years old!

What is even more amazing is how far we have come in the short period of time, since the first e-mail message was sent on October 29th, 1969 from the University of California, Los Angeles to Stanford University in Palo Alto.

Intended to read 'Login', the message only read 'Lo', because the computers could not handle the data overload and crashed before the rest of words could be typed in. We wonder how they would react to all the stuff we send out today!

So the next time your Internet connection is slow, be patient and reflect about how different your life would be if that abbreviated message hadn't been sent that fateful October morning.

sources:Nationalgeographic.com, msnbc.com