| 1958 |
. President Eisenhower requests funds to create ARPA. Approved as a line item in Air Force appropriations bill. |
| 1961 |
. Len Kleinrock, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, writes first paper on packet switching, “Information Flow in Large Communications Nets.” Paper published in RLE Quarterly Progress Report. |
| 1962 |
•J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark write first paper on Internet Concept, “On-Line Man Computer Communications.”
• Len Kleinrock writes Communication Nets, which describes design for packet switching network; used for ARPAnet |
| 1964 |
. Paul Baran writes, “On Distributed Communications Networks,” first paper on using message blocks to send info across a decentralized networktopology(Nodes and Links) |
| Oct. 1965 |
. First Network Experiment: Directed by Larry Roberts at MIT Lincoln Lab, two computers talked to each other using packet-switching technology. |
| Dec. 1966 |
. ARPA project begins. Larry Roberts is chief scientist. |
| Dec. 1968 |
. ARPANet contract given to Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Mass. |
| Sept. 1, 1969 |
. First ARPANet node installed at UCLA Network Measurement Center. Kleinrock hooked up the Interface Message Processor to a Sigma 7 Computer. |
| Oct. 1, 1969 |
. Second node installed at Stanford Research Institute; connected to a SDS 940 computer. The first ARPANet message sent: “lo.” Trying to spell log-in, but the system crashed! |
| Nov. 1, 1969 |
. Third node installed at University of California, Santa Barbara. Connected to an IBM 360/75. |
| Dec. 1, 1969 |
. Fourth node installed at University of Utah. Connected to a DEC PDP-10. |
| March 1970 |
. Fifth node installed at BBN, across the country in Cambridge, Mass. |
| July 1970 |
. Alohanet, first packet radio network, operational at University of Hawaii. |
| March 1972 |
. First basic e-mail programs written by Ray Tomlinson at BBN for ARPANET: SNDMSG and READMAIL. “@” sign chosen for its “at” meaning. |
| March 1973 |
. First ARPANET international connections to University College of London (England) and NORSAR (Norway). |
| 1974 |
. Intelreleases the 8080 processor.
• Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish “A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection,” which details the design of TCP. |
| 1976 |
. Apple Computer founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
• Queen Elizabeth II sends out an e-mail.
. Vint Cerf joins ARPA as program manager. |
| 1978 |
. TCP split into TCP and IP. |
| 1979 |
. Bob Metcalfe and others found 3Com (Computer Communication Compatibility). |
| 1980 |
. Tim Berners-Lee writes program called “Enquire Within,” predecessor to the World Wide Web. |
| 1981 |
. IBM announces its first Personal Computer. Microsoft creates DOS. |
| 1983 |
. Cisco Systems founded. |
| Nov. 1983 |
. Domain Name System (DNS) designed by Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris, and Craig Partridge. .edu, .gov, .com, .mil, .org, .net, and .int created. |
| 1984 |
• William Gibson writes “Neuromancer.” Coins the term “cyberspace“.
• Apple Computer introduces the Macintosh on January 24th. |
| March 15, 1985 |
. Symbolic.com becomes the first registered domain. |
| 1986 |
. 5000 hosts on ARPAnet/Internet. |
| 1987 |
• 10,000 hosts on the Internet.
• First Cisco routershipped.
• 25 million PCs sold in US. |
| 1989 |
• 100,000 hosts on Internet.
• McAfee Associates founded; anti-virus software available for free. Quantum becomes America Online. |
| 1990 |
. ARPAnet ends. Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web. |
| 1992 |
“Surfing the Internet” is coined by Jean Armour Polly. |
| 1993 |
. Mosaic Web browser developed by Marc Andreesen at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
. InterNICcreated.
• Web grows by 341,000 percent in a year. |
| April 1994 |
. Netscape Communications founded.
• Jeff Bezos writes the business plan for Amazon.com.
. Java’s first public demonstration. |
| Dec. 1994 |
Microsoft licenses technology from Spyglass to create Web browser for Windows 95. |
| May 23, 1995 |
. Sun Microsystems releases Java. |
| August 24, 1995 |
. Windows 95 released. |
| 1996 |
. Domain name tv.com sold to CNET for $15,000. Browser wars begin. Netscape and Microsoft two biggest players. |
| 1997 |
. business.com sold for $150,000. |
| January 1998 |
. Microsoft reaches a partial settlement with the Justice Department that allows personal computer makers to remove or hide its Internet software on new versions of Windows 95.
. Netscape announces plans to give its browser away for free. |
| 1998 |
. US Depart of Commerce outlines proposal to privatize DNS. ICANN created by Jon Postel to oversee privatization. Jon Postel dies. |
| 1999 |
•AOL buys Netscape; Andreesen steps down as full-time employee.
• Browsers wars declared over; Netscape and Microsoft share almost 100% of browser market.
• Microsoft declared a monopoly by US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.
•Shawn Fanning creates Napster, opening the possibilities of peer-to-peer file sharing and igniting a copyright war in the music industry. |
| 2000 |
. Fixed wireless, high-speed Internet technology is now seen as a viable alternative to copper and fiber optic lines placed in the ground.
. The Dot-Com Bubble bursts. A majority of the dot-coms ceased trading after burning through their venture capital, often without ever making a net profit. |
| January 10, 2000 |
• AOL Merges with Time-Warner. AOL shareholders take 55% stake in newly formed company. |
| February 2000 |
. A large-scale denial of service attack is launched against some major Web sites like Yahoo! and eBay, alerting Web sites to the need for tighter security measures.
. 10,000,000 domain names have been registered. |
| September 2000 |
. There are 20,000,000 websites on the Internet, numbers doubling since February 2000. |
| July 2001 |
. A federal judge rules that Napster must remain offline until it can prevent copyrighted material from being shared by its users.
. The Code Red worm and Sircam virus infiltrate thousands of web servers and email accounts, respectively, causing a spike in Internet bandwidth usage and security breaches. |
| November 2001 |
. The European Council adopts the first treaty addressing criminal offenses committed over the Internet.
. First uncompressed real-time gigabit HDTV transmission across a wide-area IP network takes place on Internet2. |
| January 2002 |
. .name begins resolving |
| January 2003 |
. The SQL Slammer worm causes one of the largest and fastest spreading DDoS attacks ever, taking only 10 minutes to spread worldwide.
. The Internet celebrates its ‘unofficial’ 20th birthday. |
| September 2003 |
. The RIAA sues 261 individuals for allegedly distributing copyright music files over peer-to-peer networks |
| December 2003 |
. The Research project “How much information 2003″ finds that Instant messaging generates five billion messages a day (750GB), or 274 Terabytes a year and that e-mail generates about 400,000 terabytes of new information each year worldwide. |
| 2005 |
. YouTube.com launches |
| 2006 |
. There are an estimated 92 million Web sites online |
| May 2006 |
. A massive DDOS assault on Blue Security, an anti-spam company, is redirected by Blue Security staff to their Movable Type-hosted blog. The result is that the DDOS instead knocks out all access to over 1.8 million active blogs. |
| August 2006 |
. AOL announces that they will give for free virtually every service for which it charged a monthly fee, with income coming instead from advertising. |
October
2006 |
. There are an estimated 92 million Web sites online (some stats say over 100 million)
. Google Inc. acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. |
| January 2007 |
. Microsoft launches its various consumer versions of Microsoft Vista. |
| February 2007 |
. Apple surpasses one billion iTunes downloads. |
| March 2007 |
. 1.114 billion people use the Internet according to Internet World Stats. |
| April 2007 |
. Search engine giant Google surpasses Microsoft as “the most valuable global brand,” and also is the most visited Web site. |