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Online Gaming as a Whole
The first video and computer games, such as NIMROD (1951), OXO (1952), and Spacewar! (1962), were for one or two players sitting at a single computer, which was being used only to play the game. Soon after some more minor range expansion, modem links further expanded this range so that users did not have to be in the same building as the computer. With the increased remote access, host-based games were created, and soon after, multiplayer games. -
ARPANET Goes Online
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network was a precursor to the internet that allowed computers across the country to interact with each other and share information on a single network via telephone lines. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense early on, according to History, and was mainly intended for communication within government agencies and universities. On October 29, 1969, the first ARPANET message was sent from a computer at UCLA to one located at Stanford University. -
First Ever Email
The first email was sent in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, a young engineer at the firm of Bolt, Beranek and Newman. The first email ever sent was sent using the internet of those times or in better terms ARPANET. Electronic mail looked different fifty-two years ago, although one feature would still be recognizable to today's users – the now instantly recognizable @ symbol, whose use is also credited to Tomlinson. -
NSFNET Takes Over
The National Science Foundation Network was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation from 1985 to 1995 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States. It was made in order to improve upon any faults found in ARPANET. -
The First “.com” Debuts
The first .com was registered to a computer company out of Massachusetts named Symbolics. Symbolics.com staked its claim a year before HP and IBM and two years before Apple decided to commission the transition to .com. Today, there are well over 150 million .coms registered online. Symbolics went out of business in 1993, but it has since been purchased and now acts as an online museum dedicated to the history of the internet. -
The First GIF is Uploaded
After reading in a 1984 magazine about an efficient lossless compression algorithm called LMZ, CompuServe developers released the GIF image, not knowing the algorithm had a patent pending. The Graphics Interchange Format became insanely popular, and years later transformed the Web into full color. In 1986, Unisys successfully patented the LZW algorithm, but did nothing to stop CompuServe. A few years later, the two companies banded together and decreed developers must pay to use the format. -
The World Wide Web Goes Live
First proposed by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 to find a better way for scientists to share data, the World Wide Web is a collection of web pages that are accessible through the network of computers called the internet. -
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Netscape Starts an Avalanche
Netscape Communications Corporation was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. It's Netscape web browser was once dominant but lost to Internet Explorer and other competitors in the so-called first browser war, with its market share falling from more than 90 percent in the mid-1990s to less than one percent in 2006. -
Amazon Meets the World
Jeff Bezos launched the online retail behemoth Amazon in July 1995. It's hard to believe the massive marketplace started merely as an online book store. It's reported that Bezos eventually wanted to sell "everything," but decided that books were a good starting point. -
Yahoo! First Exclaimed
Jerry Yang and David Filo created a web directory they initially dubbed, “Jerry and David’s guide to the World Wide Web” in January 1994. Two months later, they renamed it “Yahoo,” an abbreviation of “Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle,” and a new way to browse the web was born. Yahoo's directory offered a hand-picked list of sites for users to go to, broken down by categories like sports, art, news, and more. -
The Internet Finds Love
Match.com went live on the internet in 1995, making it the world's first dating site. Tinder, Bumble, Grindr and so many other dating apps can thank Match for its pioneering efforts back in the mid '90s. This app single handedly lead the way for all dating sites showing that love can be found in even the strangest of places. -
Wi-Fi Cut the Cord
When Wi-Fi first became commercially available to consumers in 1997, it gave people a look at a world without cables attaching them to their homes whenever they wanted to browse the web. The technology allows digital devices to exchange data and it's now a standard feature on everything from tablets and phones to video game consoles and robot vacuums. Unsurprisingly, it was Apple that catapulted Wi-Fi into the public view by using it in their iBook laptops. -
Google Begins It's Legacy
Google was officially launched in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to market Google Search. The developed a search algorithm at first known as "BackRub" in 1996, with the help of Scott Hassan and Alan Steremberg. The search engine soon proved successful and the expanding company moved several times, finally settling at Mountain View in 2003. This marked a phase of rapid growth, with the company quickly becoming one of the world's largest media companies. -
Wikipedia Gives Us the Power
Wikipedia went live with its first edit on January 15, 2001, and has become one of the first places people check for various kinds of information. This website allowed people to access all the information of the world with even the slightest of clicks. -
Facebook Shows Its Face
Before it became a platform for your family to voice their political opinions, The Facebook—that's not a typo, it was indeed called The Facebook—was a directory for college students aimed at helping people at the same school connect with each other. The site was launched and gained 1,000 registered users in its first night. -
Twitter Joins the Market
X, formerly known as Twitter, is a social media website based in the United States. With over 500 million users, it is one of the world's largest social networks. Users can share and post text messages, images, and videos known historically as "tweets". X also includes direct messaging, video and audio calling, bookmarks, lists and communities, and Spaces, a social audio feature. -
Netflix Transitioned to Streaming
Netflix started offering a small selection of TV shows and movies online for its users to stream from their devices. Today, Netflix is a full-fledged TV and movie studio that pumps out original dramas, blockbuster movies, and documentaries. The company's success hasn't just changed the way we all consume content—it's altered the direction of studios like Warner Bros., Paramount, and Disney, leading to an influx of competing streaming platforms like HBO Max and Disney+. -
Apple Releases the iPhone
Apple’s release of the first iPhone, more or less transformed the way we engage with the internet overnight. Its portability and continuously expanding list of features made it possible to talk, work, shop, and do just about everything else with a swipe of the finger. The iPhone has continued to advance its capabilities with each new iteration, further making the internet something that dominates our moment-to-moment existence. -
Instagram Is Born
In October 2010, Instagram launched and quickly became one of the most prolific social media platforms in existence. Rivalling apps such as Facebook, Instagram stole the show making its way to the top of charts and forever cementing its name in history. -
The Launch of Pokémon Go
On July 6, 2016, every Pokémon fanatic was treated to a childhood dream come true: the ability to actually go out and catch 'em all. Using augmented reality, people could download the Pokémon Go app and run around trying to catch as many monsters as possible. Pokémon Go took the world by storm for a couple of years until it eventually started to lose its popularity due to certain tragedies.