Brief History of the Internet

The Internet: millions of computers around the world all connected to one another via phone lines, fiber optic lines, coaxial cable, satellites and wireless connections.

1962 - J.C.R. Licklider of MIT wrote "Galactic Network" memos describing social interactions through networking. He envisioned interconnected computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site.

1967-1972 - Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn developed TCP/IP computer networking protocol, the foundation of the Internet.

1969 - ARPAnet (predecessor of the Internet) opened by Department of Defense to distribute information between geographically dispersed computers, with the aim of having a military command structure that could withstand nuclear attack.

1972 - Successful public demonstration of ARPAnet; e-mail (electronic mail) introduced.

1986 - Competing network, called NSFnet, linked five national supercomputer centers together, replacing slower ARPAnet (finally shutdown in 1990). NSFnet formed the backbone of what we call the Internet today.

1990 - Tim Berners-Lee, assisted by colleagues at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, invented the World Wide Web, wrote first version of HTML (hypertext markup language), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and URLs (Universal Resource Locators).