October 28, 2008- History of the Internet

Three links where I got my information on the history of the internet.

1957- Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) is formed in response to the USSR launch of Sputnik.

1969- ARPA goes online in December, connecting four major U.S. universities.

1972- Email is introduced by Ray Tomlinson, of Cambridge, MA.  Used the @ sign to distinguish between the    senders name and the network name.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency is renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency          (DARPA)

1973- Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is designed and in 1983 it becomes the        standard for communicating between computers over the Internet. One of thesprotocols, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), allows users to log onto a remote computer, list the files on that computer, and download files from that computer.

1974- First Use of term Internet by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in paper on Transmission Control Protocol.

1976- Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and running mate Walter Mondale use email to plan campaign events. Queen Elizabeth sends her first email, making her the first state leader to do so.

Robert M. Metcalfe develops Ethernet, which allowed coaxial cable to move data extremely fast. This was a crucial component to the development of LANs.

UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later.

1979-The Creation of BITNET, by IBM, “Because its Time Network”, introduced the “store and forward” network. It was used for email and listservs.

1983- Internet Activities Board (IAB) was created.

Every machine connected to ARPANET had to use TCP/IP. TCP/IP became the core Internet protocol and replaced NCP entirely.

1984- Domain Name System (DNS) was established, with network addresses identified by extensions such as .com, .org, and .edu. Writer William Gibson coins the term “cyberspace.”

The ARPANET was divided into two networks: MILNET and ARPANET. MILNET was to serve the needs of the military and ARPANET to support the advanced research component, Department of Defense continued to support both networks.

1985- Quantum Computer Services, which later changes its name to America Online, debuts. It offers email, electronic bulletin boards, news, and other information.

The National Science Foundation began deploying its new T1 lines, which would be finished by 1988.

1986- The Internet Engineering Task Force or IETF was created to serve as a forum for technical coordination by contractors for DARPA working on ARPANET, US Defense Data Network (DDN), and the Internet core gateway system.

1988- A virus called the Internet Worm temporarily shuts down about 10% of the world’s Internet servers.

1989- The World (world.std.com) debuts as the first provider of dial-up Internet access for consumers.

Tim Berners-Lee of CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) develops a new technique for distributing information on the Internet. He calls it the World Wide Web. The Web is based on hypertext, which permits the user to connect from one document to another at different sites on the Internet via hyperlinks (specially programmed words, phrases, buttons, or graphics). Unlike other Internet protocols, such as FTP and email, the Web is accessible through a graphical user interface.

1991- The NSF established a new network, named NREN, the National Research and Education Network. The purpose of this network is to conduct high speed networking research. It was not to be used as a commercial network, nor was it to be used tosend a lot of the data that the Internet now transfers.

1992- Internet Society is chartered.

World-Wide Web released by CERN.

1993- Mosaic is developed by Marc Andreeson at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It becomes the dominant navigating system for the World Wide Web, which at this time accounts for merely 1% of all Internet traffic.

1994- The White House launches its website, www.whitehouse.gov.

Pizza Hut offers pizza ordering on its Web page.

1995- CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy start providing dial-up Internet access.

Sun Microsystems releases the Internet programming language called Java.

1996- Approximately 45 million people are using the Internet, with roughly 30 million of those in North America (United States and Canada), 9 million in Europe, and 6 million in Asia/Pacific (Australia, Japan, etc.). 43.2 million (44%) U.S. households own a personal computer, and 14 million of them are online.

1997- The term “weblog” is coined. It’s later shortened to “blog.”

1998- Google opens its first office, in California.

1999- College student Shawn Fanning invents Napster, a computer application that allows users to swap music over the Internet.

The number of Internet users worldwide reaches 150 million by the beginning of 1999. More than 50% are from the United States.

Myspace.com is launched.

2001- Napster is dealt a potentially fatal blow when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rules that the company is violating copyright laws and orders it to stop distributing copyrighted music. The file-swapping company says it is developing a subscription-based service.

Wikipedia is created.

2002- As of January, 58.5% of the U.S. population (164.14 million people) uses the Internet. Worldwide there are 544.2 million users.

2003- Spam, unsolicited email, becomes a server-clogging menace. It accounts for about half of all emails. In December, President Bush signs the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act), which is intended to help individuals and businesses control the amount of unsolicited email they receive.

Apple Computer introduces Apple iTunes Music Store, which allows people to download songs for 99 cents each.

2004- Internet Worm, called MyDoom or Novarg, spreads through Internet servers. About 1 in 12 email messages are infected.

2005- Youtube is launched

2006- There are more than 92 million websites online.

2007- Legal online music downloads triple to 6.7 million downloads per week.

2008- In a move to challenge Google’s dominance of search and advertising on the Internet, software giant Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion.

Microsoft is fined $1.3 billion by the European Commission for further abusing its dominant market position, and failing to comply to their 2004 judgment, which ordered Microsoft to give competitors information necessary to operate with Windows. Since 2004, Microsoft has been fined a total of $2.5 billion by the Commission for not adhering to their ruling.

1) ARPA- Advanced Research Projects Agency, founded in 1957 in response to the Russian scientists beating our scientists in putting a satellite into orbit.

2) Bandwidth- A wider bandwidth means more information in a shorter amount of time.

3) Browser- software for navigating the Web, retrieving documents and other files, and displaying them on the user’s screen. Two of the most popular browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

4) Ethernet- a networking technology to connect computers over a local area network invented by Bob Metcalfe and David Boggs at Xerox PARC. Named after the invisible, massless substance that 19th century scientists believed filled the universe.

5) FTP- File Transfer Protocol. One of the first applications developed for the ARPAnet, it’s still used to send and retrieve files across the Internet

6) Java- a high-level, object oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems that runs on most operating platforms.

7) Local Area Network- a group of computers, usually all in the same room or building, connected for the purpose of sharing files, exchanging email, and collaboration.

Mainframe- a large, multi-user computer. Before personal computers were available, businesses and universities purchased large and expensive mainframes and housed them away in large, air-conditioned rooms.

9) MOSAIC- a large, multi-user computer. Before personal computers were available, businesses and universities purchased large and expensive mainframes and housed them away in large, air-conditioned rooms.

10) Node- a processing location on a network.

11) Protocol- format or set of rules for communication, either over a network or between applications.

12) TCP/IP- Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, first defined by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in 1973, the protocol made the Internet possible and has become the default network protocol around the world.

13) Unix- an operating system developed by Kerrighan and Richie at AT&T Bell Labs in the late 1960’s. It was written entirely in the C programming language, which made it easier to port to other platforms. It is still the primary operating system for the biggest servers on the Internet.