If any of you know, how and when did DU first get started?

I'm just wonderin'

Here`s a link

http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm

:eyes:

Website went live that day (although it looked a lot different than it does now, and didn't require registration) - protesters in the first ever "first ammendment zones" (to keep King George from having to face the fact that he's less than loved by many) were shown on tv, and many were holding signs. One sign - a banner actually, and very large, was black with large white letters that read: www.democraticunderground.com

I don't know how much traffic the site had that day, but I'm sure it was a lot. It sure was overrun with freepers for a long time - they were trying to squash dissent even then. After a while of that - the site went to required registration to post, and keeping freepers off the board.

and signed on. It was full of freepers. There were a number of people on back then, though, who were into very serious, lengthy political discussions. I was away for a few months, then came back and have been here ever since.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/about.html

Skinner wrote a really good piece recently on how the DU started (a day-by-day account). I couldn't find it though.

If someone has a link, please post. :)

my SO deleted the link.

No way to know for sure. We do get traffic from house.gov and senate.gov addresses, but there's no way to know for sure who's behind them. It could be Congress-people or their staffers, or it could be secretaries browsing on their lunch breaks. :)

I don't know if I registered the moment I saw the banner on TV, but I did rush to my computer to get to the DU site. I might have lurked for awhile at first because I didn't know what to expect. Apparently, you guys hadn't either. I want you to know that when I saw your banner, it was like I was drowning in despair and you were throwing me a life saver. Been here ever since. Thank you for taking this upon yourselves and for being the "good guys". I love you.

The EvilDUers. Yay, I like the sound of that.

What is the origin of the 'Underground' part? Did DU start in someone's basement?