The history of the Internet

  • The start of computers

    The Elliott-NRDC 401 was one of the first electronic computers, developed by British electrical company Elliott Brothers in 1952
  • Packet switching

    The packet switching concept was first invented by Paul Baran in the early 1960's, and then independently a few years later by Donald Davies. Leonard Kleinrock conducted early research in the related field of digital message switching, and helped build the ARPANET, the world's first packet switching network.
  • Arpanet

    On October 29, 1969, ARPAnet delivered its first message: a “node-to-node” communication from one computer to another.
  • Emails

    Emails were first used by ARPAnet in 1971 and by 1973 made up more than 3 courters of ARPAnet's packets.
  • Standford

    Standford became the official record keeper of everyone's addresses in 1973.
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    1974 - 1977

    In 1974 60 computers were connected to the ARPAnet network and by 1977 over 100.
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    More networks

    More networks started to be made and some had even more computers connected than ARPAnet.
  • TCP/IP

    Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol was first used by ARPAnet in January 1, 1983 and it was a standard way of formatting packets. And the Internet Protocol was a standard way of assigning addresses
  • The Internet

    Once networks started using TCP/IP connecting them together became easier. All of the different networks were connected to each other forming the Internet.
  • DNS

    Paul Mockapetris expanded the Internet beyond its academic origins by inventing the Domain Name System (DNS) in 1983. Hosts were arranged into domains like .com and .edu
  • NSFNET

    Started in 1986, NSFNET grew so quickly after connecting to ARPAnet that less than a year later, it already needed major upgrades to handle all of the new traffic
  • NSFNET banning traffic

    In 1988 NSFNET decided to connect a couple of private network's emails servers to NSFNET
  • ISP

    In 1989, we got the first internet service providers, or ISP. These service providers would connect people to a local network and to the internet.
  • First commercial emails

    In 1989, users of compuserv and mci mail could send the first comemercials across the internet.
  • The World Wide Web

    Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989, while working at CERN. The Web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world
  • The Arpanet shut down

    The ARPANET was officially decommissioned in 1990, whilst in 1995 the NFTNET was shut down and the Internet effectively privatised.
  • Replacement

    IN 1990, NSFNET officially replaced ARPAnet as a backbone of the internet and its more than half a million users
  • NSFNET shut down

    In 1995, NSFNET got shut down and handed everything over to the ISPs.