This chronology details the history of the Internet from 1940 to 2007 and will help students improve their understanding of chronology and the way one event can pave the way for another.
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1945
A journal article by Vannevar Bush was published, describing a futuristic device called the ‘Memex’, which, had it ever been built, could have worked in a similar way to the World Wide Web.
1950
An article describing the first personal computer, called ‘Simon’, was published in the magazine Scientific American.
1957
USSR launched its Sputnik satellite, beating the United States into space.
1958
US President Eisenhower responded by setting up Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).
1962
Joseph Licklider, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), published a scientific paper, outlining the idea of networked computers called the 'Galactic Network'.
1964
Paul Baran of the RAND Corporation published research on packets of information and recommended that encryption is built into large communication systems.
1966
ARPAnet research project began.
1967
Meeting between the National Physical Laboratories in Britain, RAND Corporation and ARPA to share ideas.
1968
Joseph Licklider published an article predicting the future of communication using computers.
1969
ARPAnet connected four host computers, in the United States, to create a ‘distributed network’.
1969
A film called ‘Telecommunications Services for the 1990s’ was made. NB Watch this film on the Connected Earth website at: www.connected-earth.com/learning
1971
Ray Tomlinson created email and chose the ‘@’ sign as way of separating a user’s name from their computer’s address.
1972
ARPAnet was revealed to the public. It had connections with 50 universities and research centres across the United States.
1973
ARPAnet went global, with international connections in England and Norway.
1974
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn published the design of the special communication protocols by which the Internet works today.
1975
ARPAnet’s first mailing list was created, called ‘MsgGroup’.
1976
Queen Elizabeth II sent an email, while visiting the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern, in the UK.
1977
Ken Olsen (the Chairman of a company called ‘Digital Equipment Corporation’) said he couldn’t see any reason why someone might need a computer in their home!
1978
The original ‘Multi-User Dungeon’ (or ‘MUD’) was created by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University, in the UK.
1980
Tim Berners-Lee started working at CERN physics laboratory in Switzerland.
1982
Norway and University College London left ARPAnet to become an Internet connection over a ‘Satellite Network connection’.
1983
A ‘Name Server’ was developed at the University of Wisconsin, which could deliver email messages without the sender having to specify the exact path they should take to reach their destinations.
1984
The Domain Name System is introduced so that computers could have Internet addresses made up of words, like ‘.com’ and ‘.gov’ instead of numbers.
1988
Jarkko Oikarinen, a university student in Finland, invented Internet Relay Chat – the forerunner to today’s Internet chat movement.
1988
‘Thinking Machines’ developed the first popular Internet search engine, called the Wide Area Information Servers system (or WAIS for short).
1989
Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web.
1990
Connections continued to spread through academic institutions in the United States, Canada and Europe – increasing the Internet’s size and reach.
1990
Alan Emtage, a student in Canada, wrote ‘Archie’, an early search tool.
1991
Tim Berners-Lee’s original browser, called WorldWideWeb, was introduced. The first website was info.cern.ch
1991
‘Gopher’, the most sophisticated search engine so far, was developed at the University of Minnesota, in the United States.
1991
The Internet opened for commercial use.
1993
‘Mosaic’, the first graphical web browser was launched.
1994
Pizza Hut announced that Internet users in the United States could now order Pizza online.
1994
The metasearch engine WebCrawler went live on the Internet.
1994
Secure Sockets Layer protocol (SSL) was introduced to make online financial transactions secure.
1995
The ‘Security First Network Bank’ was launched in the United States.
1995
Amazon was founded as an online bookshop.
1995
eBay was launched in the United States under its original name ‘Auction Web’.
1996
Internet giant ‘Google’ began life at Stanford University in the United States when students Larry Page and Sergey Brin invented BackRub.
1997
The development of Wi-Fi technology began.
1998
PayPal was set up as a way of transferring money over the Internet – a bit like an electronic bank.
1998
Internet users determined the outcome of a TV sports show online for the first time, by judging a performance of 12 world champion ice skaters.
1999
The Napster music sharing website was created by Shawn Fanning.
1999
‘Roger Wilco’ – a free voice chat application used by online gamers – was developed.
2000
Broadband became available to people in the UK.
2000
Friends Reunited was launched.
2001
Apple launched the iPod, a portable media player.
2001
The Napster website was ordered to stay offline.
2002
Napster returned, but as a subscription service.
2003
Apple’s online shop ‘iTunes’ was launched.
2003
MySpace was created in the United States.
2003
Second Life, a 3-D Internet-based virtual world, was launched.
2004
Facebook was born at Harvard University in the United States.
2005
YouTube went live.
2006
Facebook became available to the general public.
2006
BT Vision was launched, enabling people to watch TV over broadband.
2007
Google was widely considered the most popular search engine.
2007
MySpace had over 200 million accounts and Facebook had over 34 million active members.
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