Last Updated: June 13th, 2017
the Internet has changed the way we live, work, shop and interact with others these days. Can you imagine a day when you cannot use emails, log into Facebook to make a status update or to interact with your family and friends, tweet to your followers and more? No, in today’s world we cannot imagine a day without Internet but before 1969 there was no Internet!
Let us go through a history and timeline of Internet to know how the Intenet came into existence.
History And Timeline Of Internet
1969
APARNET (Advanced Research Project Agency NETwork) was the first real network by the Department of Defense to connect four different nodes in different Universities of California and Utah- the University of Utah, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Stanford and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
The first message sent across APARNET was supposed to be “LOGIN”, but the system crashed before “G”and Only “LO” reaches.
1970
Donald Davies, a Welshman and a colleague of Alan Turing developed Packet-switched network Mark I to serve the NPL in the UK.
1972
Ray Tomlinson at BBN created a first program devoted to electronic mail (email). The concept of name@destination’ is created; Network Control Protocol (NCP) is also introduced to allow computers running on the same network to communicate with each other. Tomlinson sends a first email sent which was a test message, the message was not preserved.
1973
Vinton Cerf from Stanford and Bob Kahn from Darpa started work to develop TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol). The System would allow the computers on different networks to communicate with each other.
1974
The System was referred as the Internet for the first time by Cerf and Kahn.
1976
Robert M. Metcalfe developed The Ethernet to connect computers together in a local area network (LAN).
The Internet reaches beyond the US as SATNET, a satellite program, is developed to link the US and Europe.
An email is sent by the Queen Elizabeth II from England via APARNET to promote a new programming language developed by the British ministry of defense.
UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy) and UNIX AT&T Bell Labs develops.
1979
The first news group network USENET is developed.
1979
BITNET is being introduced by International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) to work on emails and listserv systems.
1981
CSNET 56 is released by The National Science Foundation (NSF) which allows computers to network without being connected to government networks.
1983
TCP/IP becomes the standard for Internet protocol and Domain Name System is introduced which could be automatically assigned to an IP number.
1984
T1 lines were created by MCI Communications so that information can be transported at a faster rate.
1989
Plans to find a new replacement of the T1 Lines due to heavy traffic.
1989
On June 23 the first link is established between Australia and NSFNET via Hawaii and ARPANET is decommissioned.
1990
T3 line for faster speed is developed by Advanced Network and Services (ANS) and HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is developed.
Archie, the first search engine is created at McGill University, Canada.
1991
CERN introduces the World Wide Web publicly.
1992
The Internet Society (ISOC) is chartered.
1993
The first web browser, Mosaic is released which later becomes the most popular Netscape browser.
1994
The first Internet Bank named First Virtual opens and pizza can be ordered online from The Pizza Hut.
1995
Registration of domain names is no longer free. Netscape launches its first IPO.
1996
The browser war started between Microsoft and Netscape. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Sprint and MCI started appearing.
1997
The term “weblog” was coined.
1998
The Google search engine was launched which changed the way people search things online.
1999
Napster was launched which changed files sharing of audio files across the Internet.
2000
The dot-com bubble bursts.
2001
Wikipedia is launched.
2002
Xbox Live was launched by the Microsoft.
2003
The VoIP, Skype was launched. MySpace a popular social networking site was launched. WordPress blog publishing was also created.
2004
Facebook was launched along with the launch of popular social news website Digg.
2005
YouTube is launched.
2006
Twitter launches and the first tweet was “just setting up my twttr”.
2007
Apple releases its first iPhone.
2008
The Internet was used in the US Election in 2008. Google launches Chrome browser and HTML5 is introduced.
2009
Bing search engine by Microsoft is launched.
2010
The U.S government releases its control from ICANN. Popular photo-sharing websites Pinterest and Instagram is launched.
2011
Skype is bought by the Microsoft at $8.5 billion.
2012
Facebook reaches monthly active users of 1 billion.
2013
Twitter launches its first IPO.
2014
Facebook buys popular Instant Messaging app Whatsapp for $19bn.
2015
The Internet of Things(IoT) becomes a rage.
2016
The sale of wearable devices grows by more than 18% in the year 2016.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful information. Many people don’t know about this history or that people this information very helpful. Great post.