ARPANET's First Message: 'lo'

On October 29, 1969, the first message was sent over ARPANET between UCLA and Stanford. The intended word was “login” — but the system crashed after just two letters.

The first message ever transmitted across a computer network was: “lo”

“We were just lucky it wasn’t something embarrassing.”

Today that accidental “lo” stands as the internet’s first word. Not hello — just lo.