Internet History Timeline

1957 AD USA ministry for defense founds ARPA organization ( Advanced Research Projects Agency ), of which intention is to bring America advantage in science and technology for military purpose.

1962 - 1966 AD In this period researches about abilities of connecting computer systems go on. Also some trial nets are made.

1967 AD First plan for ARPANET network is made.

1969 AD ARPANET starts to work. At first alone to see abilities of computer nets on practical instance. First node is made on UCLA university. The same year they connect 3 more nodes. First RFC ( Request For Comment ) is written. Later RFC became standard manner of handing Internet standards.

1970 AD First system for electronic mail and electronic conferences is made. ALOHAnet is made on Hawaii university, which will later connect to ARPANET (1972) as first oversea node.

1971 AD In ARPANET is already 15 nodes and 23 computers.

1972 AD Ray Tomlinson writes e-mail program for sending mail over network. Telnet specification is written ( RFC318 ). With telnet you can sign up to any away computer on the network.

1973 AD First international nodes on ARPANET. One in England and one in Norway. Firs plans for Ethernet are made. First researches and plans of international network architecture connected over gateways (INTERNET).

1974 AD Protocol TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is written. This protocol is foundation of Internet.

1977 AD RFC733 Standard for the format of ARPANET text messages is written.

1979 AD Beginning of USENET conference system. First network games ( MUD = Multi User Dungeon ).

1981 AD 213 computers are connected !

1982 AD TCP/IP Protocol is made for ARPANET. First definition of Internet as network of all networks. EUnet is founded in Europe. RFC827 Protocol is made - some sort of backbone of Internet.

1983 AD Name Server is made on Wisconsin university. Everything is on TCP/IP ! UNIX with TCP/IP support is made on Berkeley university.

1984 AD DNS is widely used. 1024 computers connected.

1986 AD NNTP ( Network News Transfer Protocol ) protocol is made. More powerful USENET conferencing.

1987 AD 28174 computers connected.

1988 AD Virus infected 6000 of 60000 computers on Internet. Rescue team is created CERT ( Computer Emergency Response Team ). IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is being developed.

1989 AD 159000 computers connected.

1990 AD First remote controlled machine - Internet toaster. ARPANET no longer exists. Archie is working. First commercial Internet provider - The world ( world.std.com ).

1991 AD A lot Internet services working ( WAIS, Gopher, WWW ).

1992 AD 1136000 computers connected. World Bank is connected. Veronica search tool is working on Gopher network.

1993 AD White House gets home page. President Clinton has E-mail. Internet Talk Radio! Mosaic gains popularity. First search worms are made.

1994 AD 25th anniversary of ARPANET/Internet. First Internet shops. First SPAM e-mails. You can order pizza over Internet. CyberBank - First Vitual is on Internet.

1995 AD Internet Year. WWW the most popular Internet service. First big Internet providers ( CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy ). Expansion of Internet search sites. JAVA, VRML !

1996 AD 9472000 computers connected. Black Friday - Communication Decency Act. First world exposition on Internet. War between Netscape and Microsoft. Restrictions of public use of Internet.

1997 AD ARIN is founded, which will be running IP services. InterNIC until now !

1998 AD 2 million domain names.

1999 AD Microsoft is showing big interest for Internet by buying largest cable TV stations across USA. We can expect merging of multimedia with Internet.

2000 AD America Online, the biggest Internet provider in USA is emerging with Time Warner, movie company.