Did you know that the first-ever online purchase was not a book or a CD, but a bag of marijuana? 

In 1972, students at Stanford University used ARPANET (the precursor to the internet) to complete this transaction, highlighting an unexpected early use of technology in business. 

However, due to legal issues, this wasn't widely publicized at the time. Instead, the commonly cited first online retail transaction was in 1994 when a customer bought a Sting CD from Netscape's website.