History of the Internet

The Idea

1963

By the early 1960's, Dr. Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider had come up with a concept for and "Intergalactic Computer Network." When he was positioned as director of the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, he would propel his ideas into what would become the ARPAnet, the forerunner of what would become the internet one day.

The First Connection

Oct 29, 1969

Two computers, one at Stanford, and another at UCLA, are able to connect to each other. The first attempt to share information over a network is made, the message "login."

Launch of ARPANET

1970

An early use of pre-internet computer networking was developed to be shared between select universities as well as between military operations. This was the fully fledged result of earlier work spurred on by Cold War fears of the Soviets being more advanced than the US and the fear that the US communications could be broken into by Soviet technology. ARPANET was the first packet-switch computer.

Email is Developed

1971

Ray Tomlinson first develops the email, including choosing the format (picking what would become the domain name, @).

Symbolics.com

Mar 15, 1985

The first ever registered Internet domain name was Symbolics.com. Now the site is a history preservation site, honoring internet history.

The World Wide Web

1989

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is responsible for the founding of the world wide web. Contrary to popular belief, the world wide web is not the internet, but a part of it. Compiled of all the public pages and networks internet-users can access through hyperlinks, this information can be in different formats such as video, audio, or text.

Six Degrees

1997

Launched by Andrew Weinreich as a site for members to make profiles about themselves, add friends and list their school histories, Six Degrees is regarded to be the first social media website. At it's peak, with millions of members, the platform would be limited by the technology of the time, which would limit social media platforms for years to come.

Wi-Fi

1997

Wi-Fi is technology that takes radio waves and allows them to transmit high-speed data quickly over short distances. In 1985, the US Federal Communications Commission made a ruling which released the bands of radio waves at different degrees to be used unlicensed by the public. The development of Wi-Fi as a structured and organized tool to be accessed would not be done until a little whiles later by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and still later finetuned by the WECA.

Napster

1998

The file-sharing program Napster launches, being the first major step to normalizing file-sharing on a network scale, in this case being audio files. Napster would be shutdown in 2001, making it a short-lived venture as well.

Monicagate

Jan 17, 1998

For the first time, a major news story is first released via the internet as opposed to traditional forms of media. This story was the Monica Lewinsky scandal, first released on The Drudge Report.

Google

Sep 4, 1998

Google goes live, which is revolutionary for the common internet-user, and moves us closer to modern times of internet usage.

Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance

1999

The Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance, or WECA, was a group of companies that formed a non-profit organization to promote a new wireless standard. They coined the new technology Wi-Fi and have since improved speed and bandwidth to generate better rates of data transmission.

Wikipedia

2001

The free digital encyclopedia Wikipedia was launched.

Digg

2004

The first social news site, Digg, was launched. This would pave the way for other currently popular social sites such as Reddit. The noteworthy thing about Digg was how it democratized what content would become popular based on how the online community felt.

YouTube

2005

The now revered video-sharing service is launched. Founded by Chad Hurley, Steven Chen, and Jawed Karim, the first video wouldn't be uploaded until April 23, 2005, by Karim.

Twitter

Mar 31, 2006

Twitter launches, and the first tweet is made.

The First Internet Election

2008

2008 was the first Presidential election which took full advantage of what the Internet could do for candidates campaigns. Almost every campaigner had their team operating social media feeds like Facebook and Twitter in order to make the internet the forefront of campaign access.

Bitcoin Buying Power

2010

For the first time, Bitcoin was used as a means of purchasing real tangible goods. The goods in question were two Papa John's pizzas.

2016 Election

2016

While there had previously been internet-driven elections, the 2016 Presidential Election took things to a new level. The use of social media to promote both Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump was thorough and intense, as well as either parties use of social media to slander the opposing side. Facebook in particular was a breeding ground of false claims and rallying cries for real in-person protests and events. This election was just one recent example of how social media can be weaponized.

The Internet and COVID

2020

In light of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the internet was used in a new, all-encompassing way. For millions and millions of individuals the internet became a lifeline of sorts. A test and proving grounds of sort for how far along the internet has grown, millions of workers were able to continue working from home through video services such as Zoom and Skype for example.