Internet History Timeline

 

1957     Sputnik Launch by Russians

 

1958     U.S. Government organizes ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) within the Department of Defense

 

1961-1967         Various researchers from MIT write articles on the possibility of computer communications—leading to the design of ARPANET

 

1969     First computer network (ARPANET) established  (UCLA, Stanford, UC-Santa Barbara, University of Utah)

           

Charley Kline typed an L.  SRI confirmed receipt of the L.  He typed an O.  SRI confirmed receipt of the O.  He typed a G.  SRI confirmed a system crash!  But all was not lost. In a few hours the problem was fixed, LOGIN was received, a good connection was established, and the initial transmission experiments were carried out.

 

1970     AT&T connects computer line across the U.S.

 

1971     E-mail invented (Ray Tomlinson)

 

1973     England and Norway connect to ARPANET

 

1976     Queen Elizabeth II sends an e-mail message

 

1980     ARPANET comes to a complete halt October 27th from an accidental virus

 

1982     Idea of the Internet (network of networks) is defined

 

1983     Name Server developed at University of Wisconsin (no longer required to know path numbers to other systems)

 

Desktop computer work stations become common

 

1985     Symoblics.com becomes the first domain name

 

1987     China sends its first e-mail message

 

1989     Tim Berners-Lee conceives idea of the World Wide Web

HTML language uses hyperlinks so any networked computer can easily access information from the Internet. It was designed so that layouts would be more or less consistent from most any networked computer with any type of display. Before the web, there were no Internet "links" or web pages as we conceive of them today.  The World Wide Web also made it easier to view graphics from the Internet.

 

1990     ARPANET ceases to exist

            ARCHIE (Internet Archive of stored files) released

            World.std.com becomes first dial-up Internet provider

 

1991     Internet now at 9600 baud

            GOPHER (search engine) released

            World Wide Web released

 

1992     Audio and Video multicast introduced

            VERONICA (gopher search engine) is released

            Term “Surfing the Internet” is coined by Jean Armour Polly

 

1993     Whitehouse comes online

            President Bill Clinton:  president@whitehouse.gov

            Vice President Al Gore: vice-president@whitehouse.gov

            United Nations goes online

 

1994     Shopping Malls arrive online

            Pizzas can now be ordered from Pizza Hut online

            Radio stations begin broadcasting online

            First banner ads appear on hotwired.com (Zima and AT&T)

 

1995     Netscape Web Browser goes public (Jim Clark and Mark Andreessen)

            Real Audio (live Internet streaming) comes online

Compuserve, AOL and Prodigy provide Internet access (after years of being only a wide area network)

 

1996     Yahoo! Search Engine goes public (1993 brain child of Jerry Yang and David Filo—Stanford University)

            Internet phones attracted attention of telecommunications companies who ask the government to ban the technology (which has been around for years)

            Browser war fought between Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer

U.S. Communications Decency Act becomes law

 

1997     Most of Communications Decency Act is ruled unconstitutional by Supreme Court

            Telecommuting to work begins to be considered by many business and cities

 

2000     Y2K concerns

 

2001     Forwarding of e-mail in Australia becomes illegal (infringement of personal copyrights)

            Napster.com forced to suspend service