01/10/1989
Founded by Bill von Meister, AOL began as a short-lived venture called Control Video Corporation (or CVC). Its sole product was an online service called GameLine for the Atari 2600 video game console after von Meister's idea of buying music on demand was rejected by Warner Brothers.
Jim Kimsey, a manufacturing consultant for Control Video changed the company's strategy, and in 1985 launched a dedicated online service for Commodore 64 and 128 computers, originally called Quantum Link. After the company parted ways with Apple in October 1989, Quantum changed the service's name to America Online.
AOL, still in existence today, later on made the internet popular amongst the average internet users.