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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. -
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. -
Initial testing of packet radio networks
Initial testing of packet radio networks takes place in the San Francisco area. The SATNET program is initiated in September with one Intelsat ground station in Etam, West Virginia, and another in Goonhilly Downs, England. -
Demonstration of independent networks to communicate
Cerf and Kahn organize a demonstration of the ability of three independent networks to communicate with each other using TCP protocol. Packets are communicated from the University of Southern California across the ARPANET, the San Francisco Bay Packet Radio Net, and Atlantic SATNET to London and back. -
USENET
USENET, a "poor man’s ARPANET," is created by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Belovin to share information via e-mail and message boards between Duke University and the University of North Carolina, using dial-up telephone lines and the UUCP protocols in the Berkeley UNIX distributions. -
NSF and DARPA establish ARPANET nodes
NSF and DARPA agree to establish ARPANET nodes at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Purdue University, the University of Delaware, BBN, and RAND Corporation to connect ARPANET to CSNET sites on a commercial network called Telenet using TCP/IP. -
Internet Activities Advisory Board
The Internet Activities Advisory Board (later the Internet Activities Board, or IAB) replaces the ICCB. It organizes the research community into task forces on gateway algorithms, new end-to-end service, applications architecture and requirements, privacy, security, interoperability, robustness and survivability, autonomous systems, tactical interneting, and testing and evaluation. One of the task forces, soon known as "Internet Engineering," deals with the Internet’s operational needs. -
NSF links five supercomputer centers across the country
NSF links scientific researchers to five supercomputer centers across the country at Cornell University, University of California at San Diego, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, and Princeton University. Like CSNET, NSFNET employs TCP/IP in a 56-kilobits-per-second backbone to connect them. -
High-speed national research network
NSF convenes the networking community in response to a request by Senator Gore to examine prospects for a high-speed national research network. Gordon Bell at NSF reports to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on a plan for the National Research and Education Network. Presidential Science Advisor Allan Bromley champions the high-performance computing and communications initiatives that eventually implement the networking plans. -
Interconnection of commercial and federal networks
The Federal Networking Council (FNC), program officer from cooperating agencies, give formal approval for interconnection of commercial and federal networks. The following year ARPANET is decommissioned.