History

Google Groups: 20 Year Usenet Timeline - Notice that Google has completed integrating 20 years of Usenet posts into its archive. Includes links to notable posts including the first ever post to Usenet and the original announcement of GNU/Linux.
http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html

Usenet creator Jim Ellis dies - News item about the death, in 2001, of Jim Ellis, who helped create Usenet.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-06-29-ellis-usenet.htm

Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet - Links to Michael and Ronda Hauben's on-line book. Presents the history and impact of various aspects of the Net, such as the Internet, ARPANET, and Usenet. Attempts to help readers understand the origins of the Net, so they might help preserve its value throughout future developments and changes.
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

Gopher.quux.org : Usenet A News - Hosts articles from 1981 and 1982, which means long before the Great Renaming, for historical purposes.
gopher://gopher.quux.org/1/Archives/usenet-a-news

The Great Renaming, 1985-1988 - Lee S. Bumgarner's concise and lively history of the 1986 renaming of Usenet groups, and other events from this period.
http://www.uncommon-sense.net/interests/usenet/renaming-faq/

The Big Eight Newsgroup Creation Process - Documents the ancient process to create, rename, remove, or change the moderation status of newsgroups in the Big Eight hierarchies. Currently, the management is done by the Big-8.org team. Written by Russ Allbery
http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/big-eight.html

USENET Software: History and Sources - A Usenet post by Gene Spafford, archived 9 February 1998 by the Institute of Information and Computing Sciences. A useful historical summary, particularly in terms of the software used for usenet.
http://faqs.cs.uu.nl/na-dir/usenet/software/part1.html

SOUP: Simple Offline USENET Packet - Defines the SOUP Format. Primarily of historic interest.
http://combee.techwood.org/old/soup12.html

The Geeks Who Saved Usenet - Article on the restoration of the early Usenet articles to the archives at Google Groups. [Salon.Com] <small>(January 7, 2001)</small>
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/01/07/saving_usenet/index.html

Interview with Brad Templeton - Brad Templeton was the founder, publisher and CEO of ClariNet the electronic news service on the Internet. <small>(February, 1996)</small>
http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds2-3/templeton.html

I Remember Usenet - Brad Templeton recalls the early days of the Internet and the rise of Usenet. <small>(December 21, 2001)</small>
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2001/12/21/usenet.html

Great Renaming from Wikipedia - What the Great Renaming was, who did it, and what hierarchies were removed and created.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Renaming