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Witness History

First internet cafe

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.41.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The first commercial internet cafe opened in London on 1 September 1994.

Eva Pascoe, from Poland, is one of the founders of Cyberia. She claims that Kylie Minogue was amongst the famous visitors and learnt how to use the internet at the cafe.

Eva tells Gill Kearsley the story of how cakes, computers and Kylie came together to make this new venture a success.

(Photo: Surfers at the Cyberia cafe. Credit: Mathieu Polak/Sygma via Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I love you and would kill before I would see you taken from me.

0:06.2

Lady Killers is back.

0:08.2

Join me Lucy Worsley to investigate infamous female criminals from the past.

0:13.2

It's really important that we listen to these voices about the society in which they lived.

0:18.0

We're seeking to understand these women from the

0:25.0

21st century feminists. We cannot put women into history on the basis of likeability.

0:26.0

Put all the women back, the sinners and the saints.

0:29.0

Lady Killers, listen first on BBC Sounds.

0:33.0

Hello, you're listening to the Witness History Podcast

0:37.0

when the BBC World Service with me Jill Curzley. It's 1994 and the BBC were asking

0:47.6

this.

0:48.6

Imagine what it would be like to be able to talk to any computer in the world, including the one in the White House.

0:54.0

It seems unbelievable now, but this was a time when many people hadn't even heard of the internet or email,

1:01.0

let alone used it.

1:03.0

And it was a time when computers, cakes and Kylie came together to play their part in the success

1:10.3

of what's said to be the first internet cafe.

1:13.0

It was great to be part of, you know, connecting the world

1:16.0

and also letting people connect with similar-minded people.

1:20.0

Meet Ava Pasco, one of the founders of Siberia Cafe.

1:25.0

Ava's interest in computers started in her home country of Poland.

1:30.0

When she grew up there, the country was still behind the Iron Curtain.

1:34.0

We were all gamers and we all wanted to game on the top

...

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