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Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) is created
Found a way that computers can talk to each other in case of nuclear attack -
Computers at Stanford and UCLA connect for the first time
The first hosts on what would one day become the internet -
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. -
Email was first developed
Email developed by Ray Tomlinson, who also made the decision to use the @ symbol to separate the user from the computer name (which later on became the domain name) -
The beginning of TCP/IP
A proposal was published to link Arpa-like networks together into a so-called "inter-network" which would have no central control and would work around a transmission control protocol (which eventually became TCP/IP). -
The first Personal Computer Modem is Invented
The modem was invented by Dennis Hayes and Dale Heatherington, and was introduced and initially sold to computer hobbyists. -
Spam is born
The first unsolicited commercial email message (later known as spam), was sent out to 600 California Arpanet users by Gary Thuerk -
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 MultiUser Dungeon). MUD's were entirely text-based virtual worlds, combining elements of role playing games, interactive, fiction, and online chat. -
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 :-) as a joke, rather than the original -) proposed by MacKenzie -
The domain name system was created
The first Domain Name Servers (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. -
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, HTTP, and URLs -
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 the World Wide Web was. -
First official web browser is created
Mosaic Web Browser is developed by Marc Andreeson at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It becomes the dominant navigating system for the World Wide Web, which at this time accounts for merely 1% of all Internet traffic. source -
Creation of Google
Google.com is registered as a domain on September 15. The name is a play on the word "googol," a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros—reflects Larry page's and Sergey Brin's mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web. source -
Blogs appear
The advent of web publishing tools available to non-technical users spurs the rise of blogs, daily uploads from computer users about their lives. source -
The Launch of Napster
College student Shawn Fanning invents Napster, a computer application that allows users to swap music over the Internet.
It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing digital audio files, typically songs, encoded in MP3 format. source -
Facebook begins
Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launches thefacebook.com. 1,200 Harvard students sign up within the first 24 hours. Facebook goes on to become the world’s biggest social networking site, with over a billion users worldwide. source -
World of Warcraft
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game(MMORPG) World of Warcraft, created by blizzard entertainment, launches. It goes on to be one of, if not, THE most popular MMORPG ever created and it now has over 12 million subscriptions from online gamers around the entire Earth source -
First YouTube Video Uploaded
Titled "Me at the zoo", the first YouTube video was uploaded and now has over 10 million views. The video shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. This was the first video of what would become millions of uploaded videos of all different genres to the YouTube video streaming website. The video showed that any average person could use and upload to YouTube. source -
Wikileaks gets disabled
In a San Francisco federal district court, Judge Jeffrey S. White orders the disabling of Wikileaks.org, a Web site that discloses confidential information. The case was brought by Julius Baer Bank and Trust, located in the Cayman Islands, after a disgruntled ex-employee allegedly provided Wikileaks with stolen documents that implicate the bank in asset hiding, money laundering, and tax evasion. source -
Internet Society Founds Internet Hall of Fame
The Internet Society founds the Internet Hall of Fame and the first 33 members are inducted in a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland. source -
Snowden web privacy breach
Former CIA employee and NSA contractor Edward Snowden turns over thousands of classified documents to media organizations, exposing a top-secret government data surveillance program and therefore showing that the government can easily see what you specifically do on the internet. source
