Bitcoin is often described as the 'first cryptocurrency' in media, but I vaguely remember there was some history before Satoshi's (amazing) implementation.
I think the point was it was one of the first fairly fully decentralised cryptocurrency to exist.
Hashcash afaik came from 1996 as you say to authenticate real users..
I think there was then another coin released earlier than bitcoin which wasn't decentralised.
HiRetiks link looks really detailed though.