-
USSR launches Sputnik
USSR launches Sputnik The USSR launched the first artificial satellite named Sputnik into space. As a counter act, the US government creates the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). They do so in an attempt to become the world leader in science and technology, in relation with the military. -
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 host 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
Dveloped by Ray Tomlinson, who also made the decision to use the "@" symbol to separate the username from the computer name (which later became known as the domain name) -
The beginning on TCP/IP
A proposal was published to link Arpa-like networks together into a so-called "inter-network", which would have no cenral 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 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 an easy-to-remember domain name and then converted it to the IP adress automatically. -
The GIF image
The GIF imageAfter reading in a 1984 magazine article about an efficient lossless compression algorithm called LMZ, CompuServe developers released the GIF image, not knowing the algorithm had a patent pending. The Graphics Interchange Format became insanely popular for its efficiency, and years later transformed the Web into full colour. In 1986, Unisys successfully patented the LZW algorithm, but did nothing to stop CompuServe. A few years later, the two companies banded together and decreed developers must -
MP3 patented
MP3 patented MP3 is probably the most common format for music on the Internet, and has been hugely popular for over a decade. It fueled the digital music revolution, it's the codec behind YouTube videos, it saturates P2P networks and it's now the must-use format for DRM-free digital music downloads. -
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 in 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 Internet Phone
First internet phone Israeli company called VocalTec releases Internet Phone, which is regarded as the first commercial VoIP application for desktop computers. -
Internet Archive
Internet ArchiveBrewster Kahle created the Internet Archive after inventing the Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) system in 1989. His goal for the IA was to archive the Web sites, text, images, video and audio contained within the entire Internet, and to make it universally available -- for free -- to everyone, for ever. -
Hotmail born
Hotmail born Hotmail was the first major Web-based email provider, conceptualised by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith in 1995, launched in 1996, and bought by Microsoft in 1997 for $400m. The deal is a massive milestone in modern communicative history and extended what was previously only available behind an Internet service provider to any user on any networked computer in the world. -
Flash 1.0
Flash 1.0Macromedia Flash started out life around 1995 as pen-and-tablet computer drawing software SmartSketch, developed by FutureWave Software. Its name eventually changed to FutureSplash Animator and was then sold, in December 1996, as animation software to Macromedia, and became Macromedia Flash 1.0. Now owned by Adobe, Flash is installed on over 95 percent of the world's PCs, mainly to let people waste time at work. -
Wikipedia was created
Wikipedia was created Originally launched atop the commercial .com domain before switching to .org, Wikipedia is now one of the most visited sites on the Web, and testament to the possibilities of harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds -
iTunes store launches
iTunes store With just 200,000 songs but all major record labels on board, Apple's iTunes Music Store launched and became the first Web store to sell major-label music legally for download. The software initially only ran on the Mac, but it allowed purchased songs to be played on iPods and it sold over a quarter of a million songs within 24 hours. -
Youtube switched on
Youtube switched on Youtube is the front of the web-based video revolution, ushered in the era of Flash-based video and global Web-based video sharing. It was founded by three ex-PayPal employees and acquired for 1.6 billion by Google in 2006.
