Short history of Usenet that a ran across. Plug at the end for thier service but it was interesting reading.

http://www.giganews.com/usenet-history/index.html

As someone who ran a BBS back in the day on a PC and then later on on a IBM PC Clone (8Mhz 8088 w/20Megabyte Hard drive), ending up running a Wildcat multiline BBS I found it interesting. The www more or less killed off BBSes. I myself used a flat rate nightime only service that allowed me to dial into a bbs as a local call almost anywhere in the USA. I was a fairly regular vistor to one on the West coast that ran on a CP/M machine for exanple.