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ARPA
1969- Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) goes online in December, connecting four major U.S. universities. It was designed for research, education, and government organizations. -
Email
1972- Electronic mail is introduced by Ray Tomlinson, a Cambridge, Mass., computer scientist. Tomlinson uses the @ to distinguish between the sender's name and network name in the email address. -
Internet!
1982- The word 'Internet' is used for the first time. -
Virus
1988- A virus called the Internet Worm temporarily shuts down about 10% of the world's Internet servers. -
WWW
1989- Tim Berners-Lee develops a new technique for distributing information on the Internet. He calls it the World Wide Web. The Web is based on hypertext, which permits the user to connect from one document to another at different sites on the Internet via hyperlinks (specially programmed words, phrases, buttons, or graphics). -
Whitehouse Website
1994- 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. -
Java
1995- Sun Microsystems releases the Internet programming language called Java. -
Blog
The term “weblog” is coined. It’s later shortened to “blog.” -
Internet Traffic Record
1997- Internet traffic records are broken as the NASA website broadcasts images taken by Pathfinder on Mars. The broadcast generates 46 million hits in one day. -
GOOGLE
Google opens its first office in California. -
Napster
1999- College student Shawn Fanning invents Napster, a computer application that allows users to swap music over the Internet. -
E-Commerce
1999- “E-commerce” becomes the new buzzword as Internet shopping rapidly spreads. -
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is created! -
FACT
About 9.8 billion electronic messages are sent daily. -
Amazon
Amazon starts profiting as more people start buying and selling online. -
Napster's Fall
2001- 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. -
Google search
The Google search index reached 3 billion searchable web documents -
Apple iTunes
Apple Computer introduces Apple iTunes Music Store, which allows people to download songs for 99 cents each. -
Youtube
2005- YouTube.com is launched.
