Start things off: History of blogs according to wiki

Where else to start but the ever-increasing point of first reference?  

Interesting historical points from the wiki-entry on blogs:

1. Blogs were around before some people in this class were born.  The first "blog" was created in 1983.  Created by Brian E. Redman, mod.ber frequently posted summaries of interesting postings and threads taking place elsewhere on the net
2. The modern blog evolved from the online diary, this happened around 1994
3. The term "weblog" was coined in 1998
4. "Blog" in 1999
5. Livejournal made blogging mainstream for the high school demographic in 1999
6. The corporate world officially decided to take blogging seriously when Google bought Blogger (the host of this blog) in 2003.
7. In 2007, Tim O'Reilly proposed a Blogger's Code of Conduct

Hopefully this timeline can serve as a frame of reference for our future discussions.