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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 connected 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
Developed by Ray Tomlinson, who also made the decision to use the "@" symbol to separate the username from the computer name (which later on became the domain name). -
The Beginning of the 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 messenger (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). MUDs 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 ":-)" after 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 a easy-to-remember domain name and then converted it to the IP address automatically. -
Domain name registered for a individual website
The first website to ever create a website name on the domain was a website called "symbolics", and was created in Massachusetts. It is still active as a historic site.
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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
This 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. -
Wireless Internet connection
The first wireless internet connection, although extremely slow, was a major breakthrough. This meant that computers wouldn't necessarily have to be connected to the wall all the time for internet access. The project was run by AT&T, and was originally intended to be used for cashier systems.
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First photo uploaded to the web
The first photo to ever uploaded to the web was a photo of Les Horribles Cernettes, female parody pop group. It was uploaded by the creator of the web, Tim Berners-Lee.
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Webcam videos
The first webcam was used in an office building, so employees could view how full the coffee pot was. Since then a large interest in such cameras has spiked, and follower sites such as Skype have popped up.
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First AOL message sent and recieved
The first American OnLine message was sent by Ted Leonis. It was to his wife, and read "Don't be scared.... it is me. Love you and miss you.". She soon responded with "Wow....this is so cool!"
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First Online Ad
The first online ad was run by Joe McCambley, and sponsored by AT&T. It was a colorful banner ad promoting 7 art museums.
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First search engine
The first search engine still exists today, but is also hardly heard of; a site called Archie. Launched 4 years before even Google, it provided a full-text search of the internet.
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Digital download of a song
The first song to ever be offered for digital download was "Head First" by Aerosmith track. However, the song took between 60-90 minutes to download, just to listen to a song that lasted only 3 minutes, so song downloads weren't immediately very popular.
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First item purchased off of amazon.com
Being that Amazon started as an online book seller, it makes sense that the first item ever bought off the site was a book titled "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies". Since then, Amazon has changed the way we shop, and offers almost endless products from hundreds of brands.
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Facebook is launched
Although it was not the first social media site, Facebook became very popular very fast. Today it is still active, and has gained over 1 billion users.
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