The Internet, a global network connecting billions of devices, has transformed how humanity communicates, works, and accesses information. Its development spans several decades of innovation and collaboration.
ARPANET: The Beginning (1969)
The Internet's origins trace back to ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. On October 29, 1969, the first message was sent between UCLA and Stanford Research Institute. The intended message was "LOGIN" but the system crashed after transmitting just "LO".
TCP/IP Protocol (1983)
On January 1, 1983, ARPANET adopted TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), developed by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn. This date is often considered the official birthday of the Internet. TCP/IP remains the fundamental communication protocol of the Internet today.
World Wide Web (1991)
Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web in 1989 and released it publicly on August 6, 1991. The first website was info.cern.ch. Berners-Lee also created HTML, URLs, and HTTP - the foundational technologies of the web.
Key Milestones
- 1969: First ARPANET message sent
- 1971: Ray Tomlinson sends the first email
- 1983: DNS (Domain Name System) introduced
- 1991: World Wide Web goes public
- 1993: Mosaic browser released, making the web accessible
- 1998: Google founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin
- 2004: Facebook launched from a Harvard dorm room
- 2007: iPhone introduced, accelerating mobile internet
Internet Statistics
As of 2024, over 5.4 billion people use the Internet worldwide, representing approximately 67% of the global population. The number of websites has exceeded 1.9 billion, though only about 400 million are actively maintained.