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History Of The Internet

  • Arpanet

    Arpanet

    The first real network to run on packet switching technology. Computers at Stanford and UCLA connected for the first time.
  • Email

    Email

    Developed by Ray Tomlinson, who deciced to use the “@” symbol to separate the user from the computer name.
  • Project Gutenberg and eBook

    Project Gutenberg and eBook

    Project Gutenberg was a global effort to make books and documents in the public domain available electronically, for free, in a variety of eBook and electronic formats.
  • Global Networking

    Global Networking

    Arpanet made the first trans-Atlantic connection with the University College of London
  • Modern Email Program

    Modern Email Program

    The first modern email program was developed by John Vittal. The biggest technological advance this program (called MSG) made was the addition of “Reply” and “Forward” functionality.
  • Bulletin Board System

    Bulletin Board System

    The first bulletin board system (BBS) was developed during a blizzard in Chicago.
  • Spam

    Spam

    The first unsolicited commercial spam email message was sent out to 600 California Arpanet users by Gary Thuerk.
  • Modern Emoticon

    Modern Emoticon

    Scott Fahlman proposed using a simile face after a joke, rather than the original -) proposed by MacKenzie.
  • Malicious Internet Based Worn Attack

    Malicious Internet Based Worn Attack

    First major malicious internet-based worm attack was released, referred to as “The Morris Worm”.
  • AOL is launched

    AOL is launched

    Apple pulled out of the AppleLink program and it was renamed America Online.
  • World Wide Web Proposal

    World Wide Web Proposal

    The proposal for the World Wide Web, written by Tim Berners-Lee; was originally called “Mesh”.
  • Dial-Up Internet

    Dial-Up Internet

    The first commercial dial-up Internet provider, The World.
  • Code for the World Wide Web

    Code for the World Wide Web

    Tim Berners-Lee develops HTML, which continues to impact how we navigate and view the internet.
  • MP3

    MP3

    The MP3 became a standard file format that was highly compressed, later became a popular file format to share songs and entire albums via the internet.
  • Webcam

    Webcam

    Deployed at a Cambridge University computer lab, to monitor a particular coffee maker so that lab users could avoid wasted trips to an empty coffee pot.
  • Government Goes Live Online

    Government Goes Live Online

    The White House and the United Nations came online, using .gov and .org domain names.
  • Yahoo!

    Yahoo!

    Created by Jerry Yang and David Filo, two electrical engineering graduate students. Originally called "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web."
  • Amazon

    Amazon

    Internet’s transformation to a commercial enterprise with Amazon.com goes live.
  • Craiglist

    Craiglist

    Craiglist joints the Internet’s transformation to a commercial enterprise.
  • Ebay

    Ebay

    Ebay joints the Internet’s transformation to a commercial enterprise.
  • Match.com

    Match.com

    The first online dating site, launches.
  • Webmail Service HoTMaiL

    Webmail Service HoTMaiL

    First web-based (webmail) service. HoTMaiL (the capitalized letters are an homage to HTML) was launched.
  • Netflix

    Netflix

    Founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph as a company that sends users DVDs by mail.
  • Windows 95

    Windows 95

    PC makers can remove Microsoft's internet software on new versions of Windows 95.
  • Google

    Google

    Google went live, revolutionizing the way in which people find information online.
  • Napster

    Napster

    Peer-to-peer file sharing becomes a reality as Napster arrives on the Internet
  • Wikipedia

    Wikipedia

    Wikipedia paved the way for collective web content generation/social media.
  • VoIP goes mainstream.

    VoIP goes mainstream.

    Founded by Niklas Zennström of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark. Skype provided a user-friendly interface to Voice over IP calling.
  • MySpace

    MySpace

    MySpace began and becomes the most popular social network
  • Safari

    Safari

    Safari debut and became the world's fastest browser.
  • Facebook

    Facebook

    “The” Facebook was launched and open to college students; was called “The Facebook”; later on, “The” was dropped from the name and the era of social networking began.
  • Mozilla Firefox browser.

    Mozilla Firefox browser.

    Mozilla unveils the Firefox browser, made by Mozilla Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the not-for-profit Mozilla Foundation.
  • YouTube

    YouTube

    YouTube is an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google.
  • Twitter

    Twitter

    Founder Jack Dorsey; was originally going to be called twittr (inspired by Flickr); the first Twitter message was “just setting up my twttr”.
  • Hulu

    Hulu

    TV shows started online. Hulu is a joint venture between ABC, NBC, and Fox to make popular TV shows available to watch online.
  • iPhone and the Mobile Web

    iPhone and the Mobile Web

    The biggest innovation was the iPhone, which was responsible for renewed interest in mobile web applications and design.
  • Pinterest

    Pinterest

    The social media sites Pinterest was created by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp. It is a "visual discovery tool" that was originally created for people to share ideas and inspiration for various interests and projects.
  • Instagram

    Instagram

    The social media site Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social networking service created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
  • Tapping Into Communications

    Tapping Into Communications

    Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor, reveals that the NSA had in place a monitoring program capable of tapping the communications of thousands of people.
  • Zoom

    Zoom

    Eric Yuan, a former Cisco engineer and executive, founded Zoom, a secure, reliable video platform powers all of your communication needs, including meetings, chat, phone, webinars, and online events.
  • Google Assistant,

    Google Assistant,

    Google unveils Google Assistant, a voice-activated personal assistant program, joins Amazon's Alexa, Siri from Apple, and Cortana from Microsoft.