Internet small world

History of the Internet

By Matt Shetzline

  • 1961

    Leonard Klienrock at MIT publishes the first paper on packet switching theory.

  • 1962

    Leonard Klienrock writes the first description of the social interaction that could be enabled through networking he called “galactic network.”

  • 1964

    Simultaneous work on secure packet switching networks takes place at MIT, RAND Corporation, and at the National Physical Laboratory in Great Britain.

  • 1965

    1965
    Thomas Merrill and Larry Roberts connect the TX-2 computer in Massachusetts to the Q-30 in California with a low speed dial-up telephone line creating the first wide area computer network.

  • 1968

    1968
    Larry Roberts and the ARPA team refine overall structure and specifications for ARPANET. That very same year Great Britain setup first test network.

  • 1969

    1969
    The first node is installed at UCLA.

  • 1972

    1972
    ARPANET has installed 37 nodes, while continuing growth. By the second year of operation users have warped the computer network into a dedicated high speed federally subsidized electronic post office and the gossip begins.

  • 1972

    Network Control Protocol is introduced to allow computers on the same network to communicate.

  • 1973

    Vinton Cerf working for Stanford and Bob Kahn from DARPA begin work on developing TCP/IP to allow computers to communicated on different networks.

  • 1977

    1977
    Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs announce the Apple II computer.

  • 1979

    USENET, the first news group network is developed by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin.

  • 1983

    TCP/IP becomes the standard protocol.

  • 1983

    1983
    ARPANET’s military segment breaks off into MILNET and a domain system is introduced to allow domain names to automatically assign an IP number.

  • 1983

    NSF working group, chaired by Kent Curtis issued a plan for “A National Environment for Academic Research.”

  • 1984

    1984
    Apple announces the Macintosh.

  • 1988

    NSFNET backbone is upgraded to the T1 and the internet starts to go international.

  • 1990

    ARPANET shuts down and in its twenty year “the net” has grown from 4 to 300,00 host connecting across the globe.

  • 1990

    1990
    Tim Berners-Lee creates and implements a hypertext system while working at CERN.

  • 1999

    1999
    Wireless technology called 802.11b or Wi-Fi is standardized.

  • 2001

    2001
    Spread of P2P file sharing across the internet begins.