History and Development of the Internet

• 1962 - The RAND Corporation begins research into robust, distributed communication networks for military command and control.
• 1962-1969 - The Internet is first conceived in the early ¦60s. Under the leadership of the Department of Defense¦s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), it grows from a paper architecture into a small network (ARPANET) intended to promote the sharing of super-computers amongst researchers in the United States.
• 1965 - ARPA sponsors research into a "cooperative network of time-sharing computers."
• 1967 - First ARPANET papers presented at Association for Computing Machinery Symposium
• 1967 - Delegates at a symposium for the Association for Computing Machinery in Gatlinburg, TN discuss the first plans for the ARPANET.
• 1968 - First generation of networking hardware and software designed Backbone: 50kbps ARPANET, hosts: 4
• 1969 -ARPANET connects first 4 universities in the United States. Researchers at four US campuses create the first hosts of the ARPANET, connecting Stanford Research Institute, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah
• 1970 - ALOHANET developed at the University of Hawaii
• 1970-1973 - The ARPANET is a success from the very beginning. Although originally designed to allow scientists to share data and access remote computers, email quickly becomes the most popular application. The ARPANET becomes a high-speed digital post office as people use it to collaborate on research projects and discuss topics of various interests.
• 1971 - The ARPANET grows to 23 hosts connecting universities and government research centers around the country.
• 1972 - The Internetworking Working Group becomes the first of several standards-setting entities to govern the growing network. Vinton Cerf is elected the first chairman of the INWG, and later becomes known as a "Father of the Internet.". Backbone: 50kbps ARPANET, hosts: 23
• 1973- ARPANET goes international with connections to University College in London, England and the Royal Radar Establishment in Norway.
• 1974- Bolt, Beranek & Newman opens Telenet, the first commercial version of the ARPANET.
• 1974-1981 - The general public gets its first vague hint of how networked computers can be used in daily life as the commercial version of the ARPANET goes online. The ARPANET starts to move away from its military/research roots.
• 1975 - Internet operations transferred to the Defense Communications Agency
• 1976 - Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom goes online with the first royal email message from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern.
• 1977 - UUCP provides email on THEORYNET
• 1978 - TCP checksum design finalized
• 1979 Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, two grad students at Duke University, and Steve Bellovin at the University of North Carolina establish the first USENET newsgroups. Users from all over the world join these discussion groups to talk about the net, politics, religion and thousands of other subjects.
• 1981 - ARPANET has 213 hosts. A new host is added approximately once every 20 days. Backbone: 50kbps ARPANET+Sattelite+56kpbsCSNET, hosts: 111+
• 1982 - The term 'Internet' is used for the first time.
• 1982-1987 - Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf are key members of a team, which creates TCP/IP, the common language of all Internet computers. For the first time the loose collection of networks, which made up the ARPANET, is seen as an "internet", and the Internet as we know it today is born. The mid-80s marks a boom in the personal computer and super-minicomputer industries. The combination of inexpensive desktop machines and powerful, network-ready servers allows many companies to join the Internet for the first time. Corporations begin to use the Internet to communicate with each other and with their customers.
• 1983 - TCP/IP becomes the universal language of the Internet backbone: 50kbps ARPANET+Sattelite+56kpbsCSNET, hosts: 562
• 1984 - William Gibson coins the term "cyberspace" in his novel "Neuromancer." The number of Internet hosts exceeds 1,000. Backbone: 50kbps ARPANET+Sattelite+56kpbsCSNET, hosts: 1024
• 1985 - Internet e-mail and newsgroups now part of life at many universities backbone: 50kbps ARPANET+Sattelite+56kpbsCSNET+1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET, hosts: 1024
• 1986 - Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio creates the first "Freenet" for the Society for Public Access Computing. Backbone: 50kbps ARPANET+Sattelite+56kpbsCSNET+1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET, hosts: 28174
• 1987 - The number of Internet hosts exceeds 10,000.
• 1988 - Internet worm unleashed backbone: 50kbps ARPANET+Sattelite+56kpbsCSNET+1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET, hosts: 56000
• 1988-1990 - By 1988 the Internet is an essential tool for communications, however it also begins to create concerns about privacy and security in the digital world. New words, such as "hacker," "cracker" and" electronic break-in", are created. These new worries are dramatically demonstrated on Nov. 1, 1988 when a malicious program called the "Internet Worm" temporarily disables approximately 6,000 of the 60,000 Internet hosts.
• 1988 - The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is formed to address security concerns raised by the Worm.
• 1989 - System administrator turned author, Clifford Stoll, catches a group of Cyberspies, and writes the best seller "The Cuckoo¦s Egg." The number of Internet hosts exceeds 100,000.
• 1990 - A happy victim of its own unplanned, unexpected success, the ARPANET is decommissioned, leaving only the vast network-of-networks called the Internet. The number of hosts exceeds 300,000. Backbone: Sattelite+56kpbsCSNET+1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET, hosts: 313000
• 1991 - The World Wide Web is born! Backbone: Sattelite+1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET, hosts: 617000
• 1991-1993 - Corporations wishing to use the Internet face a serious problem: commercial network traffic is banned from the National Science Foundation¦s NSFNET, the backbone of the Internet. In 1991 the NSF lifts the restriction on commercial use, clearing the way for the age of electronic commerce. At the University of Minnesota, a team led by computer programmer Mark MaCahill releases "gopher," the first point-and-click way of navigating the files of the Internet in 1991. Originally designed to ease campus communications, gopher is freely distributed on the Internet. MaCahill calls it "the first Internet application my mom can use." 1991 is also the year in which Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN in Switzerland, posts the first computer code of the World Wide Web in a relatively innocuous newsgroup, "alt.hypertext." The ability to combine words, pictures, and sounds on Web pages excites many computer programmers who see the potential for publishing information on the Internet in a way that can be as easy as using a word processor. Marc Andersen and a group of student programmers at NCSA (the National Center for Supercomputing Applications located on the campus of University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) will eventually develop a graphical browser for the World Wide Web called Mosaic.
• 1991 - Traffic on the NSF backbone network exceeds 1 trillion bytes per month.
• 1992 - One million hosts have multi-media access to the Internet over the MBONE
• 1992 - World Bank comes on-line
• 1992 - The first audio and video broadcasts take place over a portion of the Internet known as the "MBONE." More than 1,000,000 hosts are part of the Internet. Backbone: Sattelite1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET, hosts: 1136000
• 1993 - Mosaic, the first graphics-based Web browser, becomes available. Traffic on the Internet expands at a 341,634% annual growth rate. Backbone: Sattelite+1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET+45Mbps lines, hosts: 2056000
• 1993 - InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services: directory and database services (AT&T,) registration services (Network Solutions Inc.), information services (General Atomics/CERFnet)
• 1993 - US White House comes on-line (http://www.whitehouse.gov)
• 1993 - United Nations (UN) comes on-line
• 1994 - Shopping malls arrive on the Internet
• 1994 - First Virtual, the first cyberbank, open up for business
• 1994 - The first banner ads appear on hotwired.com in October. They were for Zima (a beverage) and AT&T
• 1994 - Marc Andersen and Jim Clark form Netscape Communications Corp. Pizza Hut accepts orders for a mushroom, pepperoni with extra cheese over the net, and Japan¦s Prime Minister goes online at www.kantei.go.jp. Backbone traffic exceeds 10 trillion bytes per month. Backbone: Sattelite+1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET+45Mbps lines, hosts: 3864000
• 1995 - NSFNET reverts back to a research project, leaving the Internet in commercial hands. The Web now comprises the bulk of Internet traffic.
• 1995 - The Vatican launches www.vatican.va.
• Backbone: Sattelite+1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET+45Mbps lines, hosts: 6642000
• 1995 - Hong Kong police disconnect all but one of the colony's Internet providers for failure to obtain a license; thousands of users are left without service
• 1995 - James Gosling and a team of programmers at Sun Microsystems release an Internet programming language called Java, which radically alters the way applications and information can be retrieved, displayed, and used over the Internet.
• 1995 - Traditional online dial-up systems (CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy) begin to provide Internet access
• 1995 - The Canadian Government comes on-line (http://canada.gc.ca/)
• 1995 - Operation Home Front connects, for the first time, soldiers in the field with their families back home via the Internet.
• 1996 - Internet phones catch the attention of US telecommunication companies who ask the US Congress to ban the technology (which has been around for years)
• 1996 - As the Internet celebrates its 25th anniversary; the military strategies that influenced its birth become historical footnotes. Approximately 40 million people are connected to the Internet. Users in almost 150 countries around the world are now connected to the Internet. The number of computer hosts approaches 10 million. Within 30 years, the Internet has grown from a Cold War concept for controlling the tattered remains of a post-nuclear society to the Information Superhighway. Just as the railroads of the 19th century enabled the Machine Age, and revolutionized the society of the time, the Internet takes us into the Information Age, and profoundly affects the world in which we live. The Age of the Internet has arrived. Backbone: Sattelite+1.544 Mbps (T1) NSENET+45Mbps lines+155Mbp lines, hosts: 15000000
• 1997 - 71,618 mailing lists registered at Liszt, a mailing list directory
• 1997 - The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is established to handle administration and registration of IP numbers to the geographical areas currently handled by Network Solutions (InterNIC)
• 1997 - Network Solutions registers its 2 millionth domain on 4 May
• 1998 - CA*net II launched in June to provide Canada's next generation Internet using ATM/SONET
• 1998 - Electronic postal stamps become a reality, with the US Postal Service allowing stamps to be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
• 1998 - Indian ISP market is deregulated in November causing a rush for ISP operation licenses
• 1998 - US DoC enters into an agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers (ICANN) to establish a process for transitioning DNS from US Government management to industry (25 November)
• 1998 - Open source software comes of age
• 1999 - Internet access becomes available to the Saudi Arabian (.sa) public in January
• 1999 - IBM becomes the first Corporate partner to be approved for Internet2 access
• 1999 - US State Court rules that domain names are property that may be garnished
• 1999 - MCI/Worldcom, the vBNS provider for NSF, begins upgrading the US backbone to 2.5GBps
• 1999 - Somalia gets its first ISP - Olympic Computer (Sep)
• 1999 - Free computers are all the rage (as long as you sign a long term contract for Net service)
• 1999 - business.com is sold for US$7.5million (it was purchased in 1997 for US$150,000 (30 Nov)
• 1999 - ISOC approves the formation of the Internet Societal Task Force (ISTF). Vint Cerf serves as first chair
• 2000 thru Today:
  • People telecommute over the Internet, allowing them to choose where to live based on quality of life, not proximity to work.
  • Schools use the Internet as a vast electronic library, with untold possibilities.
  • Internet-enabled devices such as pagers and cell phones receive e-mail and access the Web
  • NASA developed a Virtual Collaborative Clinic that connects medical facilities around the U.S.,allowing doctors to manipulate high-resolution, 3-D images of MRI scans and other medical imaging. Not only can doctors consult and diagnose, but they can simulate surgery by using a "CyberScalpel." Virtual surgery gives surgeons an opportunity to practice before ever entering the operating room.
  • Electrolux, best known for its vacuum cleaners, has developed the ScreenFridge, an Internet icebox that manages your pantry, among other things. It e-mails a shopping list to your local supermarket and coordinates a convenient delivery time with your schedule.

And even as the Internet offers a single Global Village, it threatens to create a 2nd class citizenship among those without access. As a new generations grow up as accustomed to communicating through a keyboard as in person, life on the Internet will become an increasingly important part of life on Earth.