Brief History of Internet

1958	. President Eisenhower requests funds to create APRA. 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 chiefscientist.
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 Uni versity 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 email 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	. Intel releases the 8080 processer. • 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. Special Credits to: smashinglist.com . 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 hots on ARPAnet/Internet.
1987	• 10,000 hosts on the Internet. • First Cisco router shipped. • 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. . InterNIC created. • 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 Window 95.
May 23, 1995	. Sun Microsoftsystem 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 Special credits to: www.youtube.com
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.

Adapted from: www.webopedia.com