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1969: ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency)
ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) goes online in December, connecting four major U.S. universities. Designed for research, education, and government organisations, it provides a communications network linking the country in the event that a military attack destroys conventional communications systems. -
1972: Electronic Mail
Electronic mail is introduced by Ray Tomlinson, a Cambridge, Mass., computer scientist. He uses the @ to distinguish between the sender's name and network name in the email address. -
1973: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is designed and in 1983 it becomes the standard for communicating between computers over the Internet. One of these protocols, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), allows users to log onto a remote computer, list the files on that computer, and download files from that computer. -
1976: Queen Elizabeth sends her first email!
Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and running mate Walter Mondale use email to plan campaign events.
Queen Elizabeth sends her first email. She's the first state leader to do so. -
1982: 'Internet' is used
The word “Internet“ is used for the first time! -
1984: Domain Name System (DNS) is established
Domain Name System (DNS) is established, with network addresses identified by extensions such as .com, .org, and .edu.
Writer William Gibson coins the term “cyberspace.“ -
1985: Quantum Computer Services
Quantum Computer Services, which later changes its name to America Online, debuts. It offers email, electronic bulletin boards, news, and other information. -
1988: Virus!
A virus called the Internet Worm temporarily shuts down about 10% of the world's Internet servers. -
1989: The World (world.std.com) debuts
The World (world.std.com) debuts as the first provider of dial-up Internet access for consumers.
Tim Berners-Lee of CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) develops a new technique for distributing information on the Internet. He calls it the World Wide Web. The Web is based on hypertext, which permits the user to connect from one document to another at different sites on the Internet via hyperlinks (specially programmed words, phrases, buttons, or graphics). -
1990: The first effort to index the Internet
The first effort to index the Internet is created by Peter Deutsch at McGill University in Montreal, who devises Archie, an archive of FTP sites. -
1991: Gopher is created at the University of Minnesota
Gopher, which provides point-and-click navigation, is created at the University of Minnesota and named after the school mascot. Gopher becomes the most popular interface for several years.
Another indexing system, WAIS (Wide Area Information Server), is developed by Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines Corp. -
1993: Mosaic
Mosaic is developed by Marc Andreeson at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It becomes the dominant navigating system for the World Wide Web, which at this time accounts for merely 1% of all Internet traffic. -
1994: The White House launches its website
The White House launches its website, www.whitehouse.gov.
Initial commerce sites are established and mass marketing campaigns are launched via email, introducing the term “spamming“ to the Internet vocabulary.
Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark start Netscape Communications. They introduce the Navigator browser. -
1995: Dial-up Internet access.
CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy start providing dial-up Internet access.
Sun Microsystems releases the Internet programming language called Java.
The Vatican launches its own website, www.vatican.va. -
1996: Internet usage
Approximately 45 million people are using the Internet, with roughly 30 million of those in North America (United States and Canada), 9 million in Europe, and 6 million in Asia/Pacific (Australia, Japan, etc.). 43.2 million (44%) U.S. households own a personal computer, and 14 million of them are online. -
1997: NASA
On July 8, 1997, Internet traffic records are broken as the NASA website broadcasts images taken by Pathfinder on Mars. The broadcast generates 46 million hits in one day.
The term “weblog“ is coined it is later shortened to “blog.“ -
1998: Google
Google opens its first office, in California. -
1999: Shawn Fanning
College student Shawn Fanning invents Napster, a computer application that allows users to swap music over the Internet.
The number of Internet users worldwide reaches 150 million by the beginning of 1999. More than 50% are from the United States.
“E-commerce“ becomes the new buzzword as Internet shopping rapidly spreads. MySpace.com is launched. -
2000: Programmers
To the chagrin of the Internet population, deviant computer programmers begin designing and circulating viruses with greater frequency. “Love Bug“ and “Stages“ are two examples of self-replicating viruses that send themselves to people listed in a computer user's email address book. The heavy volume of email messages being sent and received forces many infected companies to temporarily shut down their clogged networks.
The Internet bubble bursts, as the fountain of investment capital dries up. -
2001: Napster and Wikipedia
Napster is dealt a potentially fatal blow when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rules that the company is violating copyright laws and orders it to stop distributing copyrighted music. The file-swapping company says it is developing a subscription-based service.
About 9.8 billion electronic messages are sent daily.
Wikipedia is created. -
2002: Internet is rising
As of January, 58.5% of the U.S. population (164.14 million people) uses the Internet. Worldwide there are 544.2 million users.
The death knell tolls for Napster after a bankruptcy judge ruled in September that German media giant Bertelsmann cannot buy the assets of troubled Napster Inc. The ruling prompts Konrad Hilbers, Napster CEO, to resign and lay off his staff. -
2003: Apple opens iTunes
Apple Computer introduces Apple iTunes Music Store, which allows people to download songs for 99 cents each.
Spam, unsolicited email, becomes a server-clogging menace. It accounts for about half of all emails.
Apple Computer introduces Apple iTunes Music Store, which allows people to download songs for 99 cents each. -
2004: Internet worm
Internet Worm, called MyDoom or Novarg, spreads through Internet servers. About 1 in 12 email messages are infected.
Online spending reaches a record high-$117 billion in 2004, a 26% increase over 2003. -
2005: Youtube
YouTube is launched -
2008: Google dominance
In a move to challenge Google's dominance of search and advertising on the Internet, software giant Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion.
In a San Fransisco federal district court, Judge Jeffrey S. White orders the disabling of Wikileaks.org, a Web site that discloses confidential information. The case was brought by Julius Baer Bank and Trust, located in the Cayman Islands, after a disgruntled ex-employee allegedly provided Wikileaks with stolen documents that implicate the bank. -
2015: Mark Zuckerberg
On September 26, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) spoke during the 70th annual U.N. General Assembly session, to increase awareness and garner support for the initiative, ONE--an organization "taking action to end extreme poverty and preventable disease." Zuckerberg's goal is to bring the Internet to the masses; universal Internet access, he claims, is a basic human right and is an essential tool in the fight to achieve global justice.
