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THE SPUTNIK SCARE
On Octobert 4, 1957, The Russians launched the very first manmade satellite into orbit known as the Sputnik. About the size of a beach ball. It took 98 minutes for to orbit the Earth. -
Arpa
ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) goes online in December, connecting four major U.S. universities. Designed for research, education, and government organizations, it provides a communications network linking the country in the event that a military attack destroys conventional communications systems -
4th Node
4th node added to American education -
Internet
The word “Internet” is used for the first time in history in the U.S. -
DNS is established
Domain Name System (DNS) is established, with network addresses identified by extensions such as .com, .org, and .edu.
Writer William Gibson coins the term “cyberspace.” -
Virus
A virus called the Internet Worm temporarily shuts down about 10% of the world's Internet servers. -
The White House
The White House launches its website, www.whitehouse.gov.
Initial commerce sites are established and mass marketing campaigns are launched via email, introducing the term “spamming” to the Internet vocabulary.
Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark start Netscape Communications. They introduce the Navigator browser. -
Google Begins.
Google opens its first office, in California. -
Napster fails.
Napster is dealt a potentially fatal blow when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rules that the company is violating copyright laws and orders it to stop distributing copyrighted music. The file-swapping company says it is developing a subscription-based service.
About 9.8 billion electronic messages are sent daily.
Wikipedia is created. -
U.S population grows
As of January, 58.5% of the U.S. population (164.14 million people) uses the Internet. Worldwide there are 544.2 million users.
The death knell tolls for Napster after a bankruptcy judge ruled in September that German media giant Bertelsmann cannot buy the assets of troubled Napster Inc. The ruling prompts Konrad Hilbers, Napster CEO, to resign and lay off his staff. -
Youtube.com is launched.
One of the most valuable apps has been put out for the people to share their videos. -
Legalized music download over the internet
Legal online music downloads triple to 6.7 million downloads per week.
Colorado Rockies' computer system crashes when it receives 8.5 million hits within the first 90 minutes of World Series ticket sales.
The online game, World of Warcraft, hits a milestone when it surpasses 9 million subscribers worldwide in July. -
Iphone
Iphone introduces mobile web. -
Microsoft tries to buy Yahoo.
In a move to challenge Google's dominance of search and advertising on the Internet, software giant Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion.
In a San Fransisco federal district court, Judge Jeffrey S. White orders the disabling of Wikileaks.org, a Web site that discloses confidential information. The case was brought by Julius Baer Bank and Trust, located in the Cayman Islands, after a disgruntled ex-employee allegedly provided Wikileaks with stolen documents that implicate the bank in a -
Coding Error
A coding error discovered in April in OpenSSL, encryption software that makes transactions between a computer and a remote secure, makes users vulnerable to having their usernames, passwords, and personal information stolen. Millions of banks, Internet commerce companies, email services, government sites, and social media sites rely on OpenSSL to conduct secure transactions. The coding error was made in 2012. Computer security experts encourage computer users to change their passwords.
