Timeline: Ethan Smith History of the Internet Timeline

Jan 1, 1958

Beginning of internet.

In 1957, the USSR launches Sputnik into space. In response to this, the United States creates the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). This special government department spurred the development of global connectivity.source

Jan 1, 1962

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) is created.

Found a way that computers can talk to each other in case of nuclear attack.

Jan 1, 1968

IMP is created.

Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) win the ARPA’s contract to construct the Interface Message Processors.source

Oct 29, 1969

computers at Stanford and UCLA connected for the first time

The firsts hosts on what would one day become the internet.

Jan 1, 1970

An Arpanet network was established.

Network between Harvard, MIT, and BBN (the company that created the "interface message processor" computers used to connect to the network) in 1970 was created.

Jan 1, 1971

Email was first developed.

Developed by Ray Tomlinson, who also also made the decision to us the "@" symbol to separate the user name from the computer name (which later became the domain name)

Jan 1, 1972

IMP Grows

The number of nodes in the IMP Network increases to 15, comprising of 23 hosts.[source](http://www.toptenreviews.com/software/articles/important-events-in-the-history-of-the-world-wide-web/)

Jan 1, 1974

The beginning of TCP/IP

A proposal was published to link at Arpa-like networks together in a so called "inter-network" which would have no central control and would work around a transmission control protocol(which eventually became TCP/IP.)

Jan 1, 1974

The term internet is created.

The term “internet” is born after Vint Cerf and Robert Kahan publish “A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection.” source

Jan 1, 1977

The first personal computer modem is invented.

The modem is invented by Dennis Hayes and Dale Heatherington and was introduced and initially sold to computer hobbyists.

Jan 1, 1978

Spam is born

The first unsolicited commercial email message(later known as spam) was sent out to 600 California Arpanet users by Gary Thuerk

Jan 1, 1979

MUD -- The earliest form of multiplayer games was debuted.

The precursor to World of Warcraft and second life
was developed in 1979, and was called MUD(short for multi-user dungeon) MUDs were entirely text based virtual worlds, combing elements of role playing games, interactive, fiction and online chat.

Jan 1, 1982

The first emoticon :-)

The first emoticon was used, While many people credit Kevin MacKenzie with the invention of the emoticon in 1979, it was Scott Fahlman in 1982 who proposed using :-) after a joke rather than the original -) proposed by MacKenizie

Jan 1, 1984

The domain system was created.

The first domain name server (DNS) was created. The domain name system was important in that it made addresses on the internet more human friendly compared to its numerical IP address counterparts. DNS servers allowed internet users to type in an easy to remember domain name and then converted it to the IP address automatically.

Jan 1, 1990

World Wide Web protocols finished

The code for the World Wide Web was written by Tim Berners-Lee, based on his proposal from the year before, along with the standards for HTML, HTTO, and URLs.

Jan 1, 1991

First web page created

1991 brought some major innovations to the world of the internet. The first web page was created and, much like the first email explained what email was, its purpose was to explain what World Wide Web was.