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History of the Internet

By Liz Culpepper

  • Kleinrock thesis describes packet-switching technology

    Kleinrock thesis describes packet-switching technology
    Leonard Kleinrock, a doctoral student at MIT, writes a thesis describing queuing networks and the underlying principles of what later becomes known as packet-switching technology.

  • ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency)

    ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency)
    ARPA goes online in December, connecting four major U.S. universities. Designed for research, education, and government organizations, it provides a communications network linking the country in the event that a military attack destroys conventional communications systems.

  • Initial ARPANET host-to-host protocol

    Initial ARPANET host-to-host protocol
    In December the Network Working Group (NWG), formed at UCLA by Steve Crocker, deploys the initial ARPANET host-to-host protocol, called the Network Control Protocol (NCP). The primary function of the NCP is to establish connections, break connections, switch connections, and control flow over the ARPANET, which grows at the rate of one new node per month.

  • Electronic mail..

    Electronic mail..
    Electronic mail is introduced by Ray Tomlinson, a Cambridge, Mass., computer scientist. He uses the @ to distinguish between the sender's name and network name in the email address.

  • First public demonstration of the new network technology

    First public demonstration of the new network technology
    Robert Kahn at BBN, who is responsible for the ARPANET’s system design, organizes the first public demonstration of the new network technology at the International Conference on Computer Communications in Washington, D.C., linking 40 machines and a Terminal Interface Processor to the ARPANET.

  • TCP/IP

    TCP/IP
    Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is designed and in 1983 it becomes the standard for communicating between computers over the Internet. One of these protocols, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), allows users to log onto a remote computer, list the files on that computer, and download files from that computer.

  • Paper describes basic design of the Internet and TCP

    Paper describes basic design of the Internet and TCP
    In September, Kahn and Vinton Cerf, an electrical engineer and head of the International Network Working Group, present a paper at the University of Sussex in England describing the basic design of the Internet and an open-architecture network, later known as TCP (transmission control protocol), that will allow networks to communicate with each other. The paper is published as "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" in IEEE Transactions on Communications.

  • So where did .com come from?

    So where did .com come from?
    Domain Name System (DNS) is established, with network addresses identified by extensions such as .com, .org, and .edu.

  • A Virus?!

    A Virus?!
    A virus called the Internet Worm temporarily shuts down about 10% of the world's Internet servers.

  • How many people use the internet?

    How many people use the internet?
    Approximately 45 million people are using the Internet, with roughly 30 million of those in North America (United States and Canada), 9 million in Europe, and 6 million in Asia/Pacific (Australia, Japan, etc.). 43.2 million (44%) U.S. households own a personal computer, and 14 million of them are online.

  • Stats

    Stats
    As of January, 58.5% of the U.S. population (164.14 million people) uses the Internet. Worldwide there are 544.2 million users.