Table 1.
Timeline: Evolution of the Internet (1,
27)
| 1836 |
Telegraph patented. |
| 1866 |
First Transatlantic
cable operational. |
| 1876 |
Telephone exhibited
by Alexander Graham Bell. |
| 1945 |
Vannevar Bush writes
an article about a device called a Memex which could make and follow links
between documents on microfiche. |
| 1957 |
USSR launches Sputnik,
first artificial earth satellite: the start of global telecommunications. |
| 1958 |
In response
to Sputnik, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) is created by the
US Department of Defense (DoD). |
| 1960s |
Doug Engelbart prototypes
an "oNLine System" (NLS) which does hypertext browsing and editing. He
invents the mouse for this purpose. |
| 1965 |
Ted Nelson coins
the word Hypertext in the publication Literary Machines. |
| 1969 |
The beginning of
the Internet: ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking. |
| 1971 |
People first communicate
over a network. 15 nodes (23 hosts) on ARPANET. E-mail invented. |
| 1972 |
First public demonstration
of ARPANET, connecting 40 machines. |
| 1976 |
Queen Elizabeth
sends out an e-mail. |
| 1980 |
Tim Berners-Lee
writes a notebook program, "Enquire-Within-Upon-Everything", which allows
links to be made betwen arbitrary nodes. Each node had a title, a type,
and a list of bidirectional typed links. |
| 1982 |
The word "Internet"
(short for interconnected networks) is coined. Invention of Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), making it possible to exchange
information between many of different subnetworks. |
| 1990 |
Tim Berners-Lee
starts work on a global hypertext system, GUI browser / editor using the
NeXTStep development environment. He makes up "WorldWideWeb" as a name
for the program. |
| 1991 |
First (text only)
web browser available. First Web server installed outside of Europe. |
| 1992 |
26 HTTP (HyperText
Transport Protocol) servers operational worldwide. The term "Surfing the
Internet" is coined by Jean Armour Polly. |
| 1993 |
The year it all
changed. January: about 50 HTTP servers and about 600 WWW sites on
line; WWW traffic measures 0.1% of the National Science Foundation's (NSF)
backbone traffic. April 30: Declaration that WWW technology would
be freely usable by anyone, with no fees. September: Working versions
of Mosaic browser for X, PC/Windows and Macintosh. |
| 1994 |
10,000 WWW sites.
Over 1500 registered servers. Load on the first Web server (info.cern.ch)
1000 times what it had been 3 years earlier. |
| 1995 |
100,000 WWW Sites.
The Web is a main theme of the G7 meeting hosted by the European Commission.
New WWW technologies emerge: JAVA, Javascript, ActiveX, VRML, Search engines.
WWW traffic now dominates NSF backbone traffic. |
| 1996 |
Over 500,000 WWW
Sites. Microsoft enters. Internet phones arrive. |
| 1997 |
Over 1,300,000 WWW
Sites. Streaming media available. |
| 1998 |
Over 3,300,000 WWW
Sites. Web size estimated at about 300,000,000 pages. E-Commerce, E-Auctions,
Portals; E-trading begins. |
| 1999 |
Over 9,500,000 WWW
Sites. E-Trade, Online Banking, MP3 popular. |
| 2000 |
Over 22,000,000
WWW Sites. Estimated 6 billion people on line. Wireless technologies maturing. |
| 2001 |
Over 575,000,000
WWW sites by January, estimated 1.4 billion pages. Broadband high speed
access enters mainstream |