Timeline: History of the Internet:
1945
- Vannavar Bush describes the memex; a hypothetical mechanical
hypertext system where individuals could compress and store
their books, records, and communications.
1957
- USSR launched Sputnik I
- United States creates the Advanced Research Projects Agency of
the Department of Defense (ARPA)
- Technological think-tank
- Space, ballistic missiles and nuclear test monitoring
- Communication between operational base and
subcontracters
1962
- Computer research program
- Leaded by John Licklider (MIT)
- Leonard Kleinrock published his first paper on packet-switching
theory
1965
- First “wide area network” created
- connection between Berkeley and MIT
1967
- Plans for ARPANET were published by ARPA
1969
- ARPANET was born when 4 computers were inter-connected
(UCLA, SRI, UCSB and UTAH)
1970
- First cross-country link installed by AT&T between UCLA and
BBN at 56kbps
- ALOHAnet satellite network in Hawaii
1971
- 23 host computers (15 nodes)
1972
- First program for person-to-person communication (e-mail)
- Robert Kahn gives first public demonstration of ARPAnet (now 15
nodes) at International Conference on Computer Communication
- @ was first chosen to separate user ids and host names.
- First computer-to-computer chat program was developed at UCLA
1973
- Ethernet was invented by Bob Metcalfe at Xerox Palo Alto Research
Center (PARC)
- 75% of all ARPANET traffic is e-mail
- First international connection (University College of London)
1974
- TCP/IP
- Each network should work on its own
- Within each network there would be a ‘gateway’
- Packages would be routed through the fastest available route
- Network only operated on large mainframe computers
1975
- First mailing list was created
1978
- TCP split into TCP and IP
- First Bulletin Board System (CBBS) Ward Christensen
1979
- First threaded message board (Usenet) -)
- MUDs - Multi-User Dungeons (Precursor to MMORPGs)
1982
- Introduction of Minitel which housed the first public Instant
Messager
1974-1982
- No standardized competing techniques or protocols
- ARPANET is remains the backbone
1981
- Term “Internet” coined to mean collection of interconnected networks
1982
- Smtp e-mail protocol defined
1983
- Original ARPANET NCP was banned on January 1st from the ARPANET
and TCP/IP standard becomes the protocol standard
1984
- Introduction of DNS (Domain Name System) as BIND (Berkeley Internet
Name Domain Server)
1985
- FTP protocol defined
1989
- WWW concept was proposed by Tim Berners-Lee
1990
- ARPANET is decommissioned
- AOL and CompuServe first provide dial-up service
- Tim Berners-Lee develops hypertext system with initial versions of
HTML and HTTP and first GUI web browser called “WorldWideWeb”
1990
- First search-engine (Archie)
1993
- Mosaic, a GUI web browser, written by Marc Andreessen and Eric
Bina becomes the first popular web browser (showed in-line images
and was easy to install)
- InterNIC created by NSF to provide Internet services; Private
companies transition into roles (AT&T – directory and database
services; Network Solutions – registration services; CERFnet –
information services)
1994
- 3.2 million hosts and 3,000 websites
- Hotmail starts web based email
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded
1995
- 6.4 million hosts and 25,000 websites
- Traditional online dial-up systems (Compuserve, America Online,
Prodigy) begin to provide Internet access
- Ward Cunningham invents the Wiki
1997
- 19.5 million hosts and 1,2 million websites
- First Blogs appear
1998
- Google is founded
1999
- Napster is released
2000
- Dotcom collapse
2001
- 110 million hosts and 30 million websites
- Wikipedia launched
2002
- MySpace launched
2003
- Facebook launched
2006
- 439 million hosts; 10 new computers connected per second