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The founding of ARPA
On the seventh of February, 1958, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, was created by the American president of the time, Dwight D. Eisenhower. This was done as a way to make American military technology better; after all, the Cold War between the United States and the USSR was going on at the time. -
The Invention of Packet-Switching
Paul Baran and Donald Davies (electrical engineer and computer scientist, respectively) decided that they would "packet-switch" data (create data into chunks which will, then, have their own passage that they will use to be transferred from one computer to the next) to transfer it between computers. This process aided ARPANET (a network of computers that are all connected, developed from ARPA (as the name suggests)) in that it made it more secure. -
The First Email
Engineer Ray Tomlinson made the emailing system at ARPANET, and in turn, also ended up sending out the very first email (and using the "@" symbol in regard to the email for the first time). The email in question was allegedly a simply "QWERTYUIOP," that is, the first row of letters on a keyboard. -
The First Event of Spam
Spam email can be annoying pieces of mail found on the Internet. It was first made in 1978 by Gary Thuerk. He was trying to garner attention for the buying of computers, as well as bringing attention to the places where they are showcased (open houses) so that the public will buy them. This was considered a spam email because Thuerk had sent this to 400 people at ARPANET (a site containing around 2 600 people), and it was frowned upon largely. -
The Development of DNS
DNS stands for the Domain Name System. "www.wow.com," is an example of a domain name (".com" and ".edu" refer to Top Level Domain). Anyway, the DNS was made in 1983 by Paul Mockapetris. DNS refers to the making of IP addresses through a site's domain name to locate the site you want better (after all, we as people do not operate at the level a computer does, so using domain names would be much easier than typing out an IP address). -
ARPANET Standardizes TCP/IP
TCP and IP, respectively, stand for Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol. TCP/IP was put into place as protocol for ARPANET in 1985 (before, they were using NCP, or Network Control Protocol). This aided in the maintenance of computers and their interactions (in that, through TCP/IP, they could interact better with each other). -
The Founding of the World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee, a British programmer in Switzerland, created the World Wide Web, also known by the acronym, WWW. Although it was created in 1989, it was given out to the public in 1991, and acted as a place of retrievable data/information for everyone's use. -
The Developed Commercialization of the Internet
In 1992, many different businesses came onto the Internet to start selling their products to the public. This was done because the American Congress had decided to commercialize the Internet. That is, people could use the Internet for the buying and selling of goods, which could increase their profit/the money they (the businesses) make. -
The Founding of Mosaic
University of Illinois' Marc Andreessen decided to publicize a browser he and Eric Bina (also from the University of Illinois) created in the year 1993. This browser was called Mosaic. This browser was the very first one to become popular (there were other browsers, but they were not as well-known as Mosaic), and, in turn, made Web sites as a concept and the World Wide Web much more popular alongside it. It was used as a place to find information (as web browsers do). -
The Formation of Amazon
After seeing the popularity of the Internet and the potential it had, Jeffrey Bezos decided that he should make an online bookstore. This bookstore ended up expanding and becoming popular over time; it is now known as Amazon. -
The First Online Dating Site
Match.com was created in 1995 as a way for people to date through the Internet, much like Tinder and Hinge nowadays. Match.com was created by Gary Kremen, a Standford graduate, after it came to him while he was showering. It acted as the very first dating site (as said in the title) for people to use; nowadays, Tinder, Hinge, Pairs, and some more dating sites are under the Match Group's control. -
The Nokia 9000's Connection to the Internet
The Nokia 9000 (specifically, the Nokia 9000 Communicator) was a phone from the brand, Nokia, developed in the year 1996. and able to use the Internet (for ways through the Internet). It was the first phone in production that was able to genuinely make use of the Internet it was connecting to. -
The Development of the Internet Archive
In the year 1996, the Internet Archive was created by Brewster Kahle as a way to "store" pretty much all that is contained in the Internet. This would then be available for use by the public, whether that be a website or even audio recordings that are found on the Internet. -
The First Social Media Site
SixDegrees.com was created in 1997 as the very first form of social media. Users who signed up for Six Degrees would connect with others by things that are seen today, like private messaging, lists of close ones on a personalized profile, etc. Six Degrees did not end up being successful as of now, but it lasted until the year 2000. -
The Formation of 128-Bit IP Addresses
Before, IP addresses were 32-bits only. However, in 1998, it was made so that IP addresses would be 128-bits so to reach more destinations online. In other words, there would be more connections made through the Internet and the computers connected to it because there are more addresses to give to each device (that is connected to the Internet, of course). The 128-bits for an IP address came to be through the Internet Engineering Task Force, by the way. -
The Launching of Google
Stanford Univeristy's Segrey Brin and LArry Page decided that they will launch forward a search engine on the Internet called Google (named after the number "googol," which was meant to represent the growth that the site would eventually have). It was originally called BackRub and used at Stanford only, but, as a site, it obviously grew further into the genral public as a very well-known search engine. -
The Formation of Wikipedia
Wikipedia is well-known now as a source of information that is editable for anyone. It was the same way when it was first made in 2001 as Nupedia's (an online encyclopedia made before Wikipedia (of course)) aid in that it was made to help make more articles for Nupedia. However, it was eventually formed independently of Nupedia into what we now know. It also has many translations (again, just as it does today). -
The Founding of Facebook
Facebook (originally known as TheFacebook) was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, alongside some other students by the names of Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin. All four of these people are Harvard students (Mark Zuckerberg being the CEO). The site was made for Harvard students to use as a form of social media, but, of course, it eventually did not require you to be from Harvard as time went on. -
The Founding of YouTube
On Valentine's Day of 2005, YouTube was founded and publicized. This site, created by Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, and Chad Hurley, was intended to be used as a way to share interesting videos with the public. A fun fact about the three founders is that they were prompted to make YouTube after the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show with Justin Tiberlake and Janet Jackson!