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Sputnik and the Dawn of the Space Age
History changed when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball, weighed only 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age. -
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<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Research_Projects_Agency' target="_blank">All About ARPA (later renamed DARPA)</a> Largely as a result of the Sputnik launch, ARPA (later renamed DARPA) is established to push the U.S. ahead in technology and science (top among its priorities is computer technology).
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<a href='http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1460847' target="_blank">On-line man-computer communication</a> J.C.R. Licklider wrote about his vision of a globally interconnected group of computers that provide widespread access to data and programs. In October 1962, Licklider became the first head of the computer research program at DARPA. While at DARPA he convinced his successors at DARPA of the importance of this networking concept.
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<a href='http://faculty.vassar.edu/mijoyce/Ted_sed.html' target="_blank">Did Ted Nelson first use the word"hypertext" at Vassar College?</a> In a Vassar College Miscellany News article dated February 3, 1965, "Professor Nelson Talk Analyzes P.R.I.D.E.," written by Laurie Wedeles, Nelson is quoted as having used the word "hyper-text."
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<a href='http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_arpanet.htm' target="_blank">ARPANET - The First Internet</a> Requests for quotation are sent out to create ARPANET, the beginnings of the Internet.
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The entire four-node ARPANET network is established at UCLA [September 2, 1969], Stanford Research Institute (SRI) [October 1, 1969], University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) [November 1, 1969], and the University of Utah [December 1969]. ARPANET will promote the "cooperative networking of time-sharing computers" with these four host computers.
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ARPANET grows to 23 hosts, including universities and government research centers.
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Commercial databases services, such as Dialog, DSC Orbit, Lexis, The New York Times DataBank, and others, begin making their subscription services available through dial up networks.
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shown in image (l to r): Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, U.S. President Bill Clinton (credit: unknown, from http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_cerf.htm) <a href='http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_cerf.htm' target="_blank">Vinton Cerf -- "Father of the Internet"</a> The International Network Working Group (INWG) is established to advance and set standards for networking technologies. The 1st chairman is Vint Cerf, whi is now often referred to as the "Father of the Internet."
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ARPANET makes its first international connections at the University College of London (England) and the Royal Radar
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<a href='http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall06/cos561/papers/cerf74.pdf' target="_blank">A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication</a> “A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection,” which specifies
the details of TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), is published by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn. -
There are 111 hosts on the internet.
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TCP is split into TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol).
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The first Usenet discussion groups are created by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin, graduate students at Duke University and the University of North Carolina, and Usenet quickly spreads worldwide. The first emoticons (smileys) are suggested by Kevin McKenzie.
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There are 562 hosts on the internet.
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TCP/IP is adopted as the universal protocol for the internet.
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Domain Name System (DNS) History Name servers are developed, allowing a user to get to a computer without specifying the exact path.
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There are more than 1,000 hosts on the internet.
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The WELL (Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link) is started, allowing individual users, outside universities to easily participate on the internet.
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There are more than 5,000 hosts on the internet.
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A Brief History of NSF and the Internet NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) is created. The backbone speed is 56K (as in the total transmission capability of a 56K dial-up modem.)
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There are more than 10,000 hosts on the internet.
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There are more than 100,000 hosts on the internet.
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ARPANET fades away.
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There are more than 300,000 hosts on the internet.
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Photo credit: Time Magazine
<a href='http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/scientist/profile/bernerslee.html' target="_blank">Tim Berners-Lee</a> Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) in Geneva introduces the World Wide Web. -
National Science Foundation (NSF) removes the restriction on commercial use of the internet.
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There are more than 1,000,000 hosts on the internet.
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The first graphics-based browser, Mosaic, is released.
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WebCrawler, the first successful web search engine, is introduced.
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There are more than 10,000,000 hosts on the internet.
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The first Google index of webpages crawls 26 million web pages.
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Google is indexing more than 3 billion web pages.
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There are more than 200,000,000 IP hosts on the internet
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Google search engines hit the milestone of crawling and indexing one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) web pages. That means Google detected more than one trillion unique URLs on the internet.
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<a href='http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm' target="_blank">Internet Usage Statistics</a> As of June 30, 2010, there were almost 2 billion Internet users worldwide, with the largest number of users in Asia (825 million). With the total world population of 6.8 billion, this means that almost 1 in 3 people in the world use the internet.
