October 19, 1989: America Online Launches

What started as Q Link for Commodore machines (by ex Apple Employee Steve Case) morphed into America Online.

The service would go on to become the de facto standard for online connectivity until the internet revolution in the nineties. Users loved the chat rooms and businesses were started using nothing more than the America Online classifieds.

In a moment of internet boom fueled misjudgement Time Warner was purchased by America Online. The service that would go from decidedly small time to history's largest internet bust debuted this month, for Apple II and Mac only, in 1989.

AOL Corporate History