-
USSR launches Sputnik into space and, with it, global communications.
-
Bell Labs researchers invent the modem (modulator - demodulator), which converts digital signals to electrical (analog) signals and back, enabling communication between computers.
-
The United States government creates the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in response to Sputnik launch.
-
Leonard Kleinrock pioneers the packet-switching concept in his Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doctoral thesis about queueing theory: Information Flow in Large Communication Nets.
-
J.C.R. Licklider writes memos about his Intergalactic Network concept of networked computers and becomes the first head of the computer research program at ARPA.
-
The first universal standard for computers, ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Exchange) is developed by a joint industry-government committee. ASCII permits machines from different manufacturers to exchange data.
-
The Rand Corporation's Paul Baran develops message blocks in the U.S., while Donald Watts Davies, at the National Physical Laboratory in Britain, simultaneously creates a similar technology called packet-switching. The technology revolutionizes data communications.
-
By 2010, there are over 450 million Chinese Internet users.
-
Live streaming of Will and Kate’s wedding is the biggest event ever watched on the Internet
-
The Internet Society founds the Internet Hall of Fame and the first 33 members are inducted in a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland.