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ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) goes online in December, connecting four major U.S. universities. Designed for research, education, and government organizations, it provides a communications network linking the country in the event that a military attack destroys conventional communications systems.
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Electronic mail is introduced by Ray Tomlinson, a Cambridge, Mass., computer scientist. He uses the @ to distinguish between the sender's name and network name in the email address.
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Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is designed and in 1983 it becomes the standard for communicating between computers over the Internet. One of these protocols, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), allows users to log onto a remote computer, list the files on that computer, and download files from that computer.
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Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and running mate Walter Mondale use email to plan campaign events.
Queen Elizabeth sends her first email. She's the first state leader to do so. -
The word "internet" is used for the first time.
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Domain Name System (DNS) is established, with network addresses identified by extensions such as .com, .org, and .edu.
Writer William Gibson coins the term “cyberspace.” -
A virus was released that shut down 10% of the world's internet servers.
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The White House launches its website, www.whitehouse.gov.
Initial commerce sites are established and mass marketing campaigns are launched via email, introducing the term “spamming” to the Internet vocabulary.
Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark start Netscape Communications. They introduce the Navigator browser. -
"Approximately 45 million people are using the Internet, with roughly 30 million of those in North America (United States and Canada), 9 million in Europe, and 6 million in Asia/Pacific (Australia, Japan, etc.). 43.2 million (44%) U.S. households own a personal computer, and 14 million of them are online."
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Google opens it's first office in california.
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College students create an application that allows students to swap music over the internet. The number of people using the internet reaches 150 million worldwide.
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It's estimated that Internet users illegally download about 2.6 billion music files each month.
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An Internet worm, called MyDoom spreads through the emails and it infects every 1 of 12 emails. It causes many companies to stop working temporarily and and online spending reaches $117 billion in 2004.
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Youtube.com is launched.
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There are more than 92 million people websites online.
