WWW: A Long Journey

In today’s world surfing is a very common world, by surfing here I mean net surfing and that we do in Internet, and when we say internet, we actually talk about the World Wide Web from the past eight or nine years. But, if you see back in history then it goes back a lot further; all the way back to the 1950s and 60s.

So, here is brief timeline of www, highlighting some of the major developments over the past 41 years.

1958 President Eisenhower requests funds to create ARPA. Approved as a line item in Air Force appropriations bill.

1961 Len Kleinrock, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, writes first paper on packet switching, ("Information Flow in Large Communications Nets.")

1962 1. J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark write first paper on Internet Concept, "On-Line Man Computer Communications." 2. Len Kleinrock writes Communication Nets, which describes design for packet switching network; used for ARPAnet

1964 Paul Baran writes, "On Distributed Communications Networks," first paper on using message blocks to send info across a decentralized networktopology(Nodes and Links)

Oct. 1965 First Network Experiment: Directed by Larry Roberts at MIT Lincoln Lab, two computers talked to each other using packet-switching technology.

Dec. 1966 ARPA project begins. Larry Roberts is chief scientist.

Dec. 1968 ARPANet contract given to Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Mass.

Sept. 1, 1969 First ARPANet node installed at UCLA Network Measurement Center. Kleinrock hooked up the Interface Message Processor to a Sigma 7 Computer.

Oct. 1, 1969 Second node installed at Stanford Research Institute; connected to a SDS 940 computer. The first ARPANet message sent: "lo." Trying to spell log-in, but the system crashed!

Nov. 1, 1969 Third node installed at University of California, Santa Barbara. Connected to an IBM 360/75.

Dec. 1, 1969 Fourth node installed at University of Utah. Connected to a DEC PDP-10.

March 1970 Fifth node installed at BBN, across the country in Cambridge, Mass.

July 1970 Alohanet, first packet radio network, operational at University of Hawaii.

March 1972 First basic e-mail programs written by Ray Tomlinson at BBN for ARPANET: SNDMSG and READMAIL. "@" sign chosen for its "at" meaning.

March 1973 First ARPANET international connections to University College of London (England) and NORSAR (Norway).

1974: 1. Intel releases the 8080 processor. 2. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection," which details the design of TCP.

1976: 1. Apple Computer founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. 2. Queen Elizabeth II sends out an e-mail. 3. Vint Cerf joins ARPA as program manager.

1978: TCP split into TCP and IP.

1979: Bob Metcalfe and others found 3Com (Computer Communication Compatibility).

1980: Tim Berners-Lee writes program called "Enquire Within," predecessor to the World Wide Web.

1981: IBM announces its first Personal Computer. Microsoft creates DOS.

1983: Cisco Systems founded.

Nov. 1983: Domain Name System (DNS) designed by Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris, and Craig Partridge. .edu, .gov, .com, .mil, .org, .net, and .int created.

1984: 1. William Gibson writes "Neuromancer." Coins the term "cyberspace". 2. Apple Computer introduces the Macintosh on January 24th.

March 15, 1985: Symbolic.com becomes the first registered domain.

1986: 5000 hosts on ARPAnet/Internet.

1987: 1. 10,000 hosts on the Internet. 2. First Cisco routershipped. 3. 25 million PCs sold in US.

1989: 1. 100,000 hosts on Internet. 2. McAfee Associates founded; anti-virus software available for free. Quantum becomes America Online.

1990: ARPAnet ends. Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web.

1992: "Surfing the Internet" is coined by Jean Armour Polly.

1993: 1. Mosaic Web browser developed by Marc Andreesen at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. 2. InterNICcreated. 3. Web grows by 341,000 percent in a year.

April 1994: 1. Netscape Communications founded. 2. Jeff Bezos writes the business plan for Amazon.com. 3. Java's first public demonstration.

Dec. 1994: Microsoft licenses technology from Spyglass to create Web browser for Windows 95.

May 23, 1995: Sun Microsystems releases Java.

August 24, 1995: Windows 95 released.

1996: Domain name tv.com sold to CNET for $15,000. Browser wars begin. Netscape and Microsoft two biggest players.

1997: business.com sold for $150,000.

1998: US Depart of Commerce outlines proposal to privatize DNS. ICANN created by Jon Postel to oversee privatization. Jon Postel dies.

1999: 1. AOL buys Netscape; Andreesen steps down as full-time employee. 2. Browsers wars declared over; Netscape and Microsoft share almost 100% of browser market. 3. Microsoft declared a monopoly by US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. 4. Shawn Fanning creates Napster, opening the possibilities of
peer-to-peer file sharing and igniting a copyright war in the music industry.

January 10, 2000: AOL Merges with Time-Warner. AOL shareholders take 55% stake in newly formed company.

February 2000: A large-scale denial of service attack is launched against some major Web sites like Yahoo! and eBay, alerting Web sites to the need for tighter security measures.

July 2001: A federal judge rules that Napster must remain off-line until it can prevent copyrighted material from being shared by its users.


After this day, it becomes part of our day to day life.

Source: Webopedia