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The Advanced Research Projects Agency goes online, connecting four major universities in the US. ARPA was designed for education and research, but also provided a form of communication across the US in case of a military attack where all other communications methods were destroyed.
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Computer Scientist Ray Tomilson introduces Electronic Mail, and sends it for the first time to co workers. The @ mark was introduced to distinguish between a users' name and the network name in the email address
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Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol designed and will later become the main way that computers communicate over the internet.
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Domain Name System is created and used to identify network addresses with extensions such as .org, .com, or .edu
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An uknown virus called the "Internet Worm" temporarily shuts down approximately 10% of the world's internet servers. This was the first mass distributed worm which used the internet to spread that was damaging.
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Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web, a new way of viewing and distributing information on the internet. The Web can be viewed through a Graphical User Interface and uses hyperlinks to direct users from one document to another.
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Sun Microsystems launches it's internet programming language, Java
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Internet traffic records are broken as NASA broadcasts images taken by the pathfinder rover on Mars. The broadcast generates 46 million hits in one day
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Peer to Peer music sharing site "Napster" is ordered to be shut down after 3 years online. Courts in the US rule that the company is breaking copyright music laws, and later orders that the founder, Shawn Fanning, is to immediately resign and lay off his staff
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Apple computer launches the iTunes music store, which allows users to purchase songs for 99 cents each
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Three former PayPal employees create a site where users can upload, view and share videos