The birth of electronic mail occurred in 1965 at MIT. Ray Tomlinson sent the first message between two computers in 1971 using the "@" symbol to denote sending from one computer to another. Email was further developed to allow organization into folders and offline reading. Common email protocols include SMTP, POP3, and IMAP. Email is important as it saves time and money while allowing instant communication. HTTPS encrypts messages sent over HTTP for secure transmission. FTP allows two computers to connect over the internet and transfer files by converting them to binary for transmission.