Internet History By Internition Jan 1, 1836 First Telegraph Jan 1, 1866 Transatlantic cable Jan 1, 1876 The Telephone Jan 1, 1957 USSR launches Sputnik Jan 1, 1968 Packet-switching (PS) networks developed Jan 2, 1969 Birth of Internet Jan 1, 1971 People communicate over a network Jan 1, 1972 Computers can connect more freely and easily Jan 1, 1973 Global Networking becomes a reality Jan 1, 1976 Networking comes to many Jan 1, 1977 E-mail takes off, Internet becomes a reality Jan 1, 1983 Internet gets bigger Jan 1, 1986 Power of Internet Realised Jan 1, 1987 Commercialisation of Internet Born Jan 1, 1989 Large growth in Internet Jan 1, 1991 Modernisation Begins Jan 1, 1993 The WWW Revolution truly begins Jan 1, 1996 Microsoft enter Jan 1, 1997 What Next? 19.5 Million Hosts, 1 Million WWW sites, 71,618 Newsgroups.