January
1, 1983 –- "Birth of the Internet"1957—Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
Was formed by US Department of Defense (DoD), because USSR’s launch of Sputnik. ARPA’s charter was to help U.S. maintain a technological lead, particularly with regards to the military. (text)
1968 -- Packet Switching
Paul Baran of Rand Corporation had to establish a way to get information across a network so that there is not a single point of failure. In the event of a nuclear attack, the US DoD needed to ensure the network would continue to work. (text)
The method used to move data around on the Internet. In packet switching, all the data coming out of a machine is broken up into chunks, each chunk has the address of where it came from and where it is going. This enables chunks of data from many different sources to co-mingle on the same lines, and be sorted and directed to different routes by special machines along the way. This way many people can use the same lines at the same time.
The first WAN to use packet switching is tested at the National Research Laboratory (NRL) in Great Britain.
1968 -- August
Larry Roberts of ARPA releases a Request for Quotation (RFQ) looking for bids to constructing a network of 4 IMPs, with possible growth to 19. Many large companies like ATT and IBM do not submit bits, saying that such a network was not possible.
1968--December
Many people are surprised that a small consulting company called Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) located in Cambridge wins the ARPA IMP contract. The group, headed by Frank Heart, would have $1 million and less than a year to turn the theory into a working system.
1969 -- ARPANET
ARPA created ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) -- The precursor to the Internet. Developed in the late 60’s and early 70’s by the US DoD as an experiment in wide-area-networking that would survive a nuclear war.
ARPA commissioned Bolt, Beranek, and Newman to build Interface Message Processors, based on packet switching. These IMPs were located at UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UC at Santa Barbara, and University of Utah at Salt Lake City.
IMPs have evolved into what are now called IP routers.
1969—March
Honeywell delivers the first IMP prototype (IMP 0) to BBN. The unit was a modified version of Honeywell's rugged 516 computer. Unfortunately it didn't work correctly, Ben Barker would spend several weeks rewiring it by hand into the correct configuration.
1969 -- April 7th
Steve Crocker creates the first Request for Comment (RFC) document titled 'Host Software' (RFC1). It outlined the interface between hosts and BNN's IMP devices, each site would be responsible for creating the host software that connected their computers to the ARPANET's IMPs. Crocker hoped to create an environment in which everyone felt comfortable participating - a spirit which would help the network to thrive in the coming decades.
1969--September 2nd
'The IMP Guys' from BNN finish installing the first ARPANET IMP node at UCLA, it is attached to the school's Sigma-7 without a hitch.
1969--October 1st
The ARPANET's second node is set up at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), connecting to their SDS 940. After a bit of tweaking the first connection was made from UCLA to the SRI machine over the 50Kbps circuit.
1969--November 1st
IMP number three is installed at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
1969--December
The fourth node is installed at the University of Utah.
1970
Norman Abrahamson of the University of Hawaii develops ALOHAnet with funding from ARPA. It carried data at 4.8Kbps. This would lay the groundwork for Ethernet several years later.
1970--March
The fifth ARPANET node is installed at BBN's headquarters.
1970--December
ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP) created by the Network Working Group (NWG) headed by Steve Crocker.
1971
The ARPANET now has 15 sites (23 total hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, U of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND, SDC, Harvard, Lincoln Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames and averages about 700,000 packets per day.
Project Gutenberg is started by Michael Hart. Its first text is the US Declaration of Independence.
There were about nineteen nodes in the initially planned ARPANET, with thirty different university sites that ARPA was funding. Things went slowly because there was an incredible array of machines that needed interface hardware and network software. Referencing Document
1971--June 23rd
RFC 172 is released establishing the File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
1972—March (Email)
BBN's Ray Tomlinson creates the first software allowing email to be sent between computers, email quickly becomes the network's most popular application.
1972--April 3rd (Telnet)
Jon Postel creates the 1st Telnet specification (RFC #318) entitled: 'Ad hoc Telnet Protocol'.
1972--October (INWG)
Bob Kahn organizes a demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines at the International Conference on Computer Communications.
The Inter-Networking Group (INWG) is created to develop standards for the ARPANET. Vinton Cerf is named the chairman.
1973
First international connections to the ARPANET: University College of London in England and the Royal Radar Establishment in Norway. ARPANET traffic grows to more than 3 million packets per day.
1973--March
Vinton Cerf sketches his gateway architecture on back of envelope while sitting in a hotel lobby, building on Bob Kahn's ideas for an improved version of NCP.
1973--May 22nd
Robert Metcalfe writes a 13 page description of what will become Ethernet as part of his Harvard PhD thesis. He and David Boggs would later create the first ethernet network (running at 2.944 Mbps) between computers named Michelson and Morley.
1973-- June
Metcalfe would later start 3Com Corporation.
1973--October 15th-17th (UNIX)
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie presented their first paper on UNIX at the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles.
1976
UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs. It is distributed with UNIX one year later.
Leonard Kleinrock publishes the first book about ARPANET technologies: 'Queueing Systems Volume II - Computer Applications' which helped packet switching gain wide-spread acceptance.
The CCITT (now the ITU) defines the X.25 protocol for public packet switched networks.
1977--July
Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn and others demonstrate the first gateway system connecting packet radio and the ARPANET.
1981--September (TCP/IP)
RFC #791 which defines Internetwork Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is released.
IBM releases its IBM PC. Retailing for $4500, more than 65,000 are sold in the first 4 months.
1982
The number of hosts breaks 200.
DCA and ARPA establishes the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite for ARPANET. The cutover date is set for January 1st 1983.
The Defense Data Network is created (soon to become the Milnet).
1982--June
The first PC LAN is demonstrated at the National Computer Conference by Drew Major, Kyle Powell, and Dale Neibaur. Their software would eventually become Novell's Netware.
1982--October
Eric Rosen finishes the External Gateway Protocol (RFC 827) specification.
The number of hosts breaks 500.
Between ’69 and ’83, several networks developed. Because these independent networks used different protocols, in other words, different rules of communication, to connect these networks and give access to these networks and universal protocol was needed.
Again, ARPA commissioned the development of TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol) that allowed these networks to connect. These networks used IP to communicate with one another and the IMPs, which switched packets, became known as gateways and routers.
Most every network except for ARPANET, was using TCP/IP in the late ‘70s. And when ARPANET converted to TCP/IP in January, 1983, most folks consider this date to be birth of Internet.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a research program to investigate techniques and technologies for interlinking packet networks of various kinds. The objective was to develop communication protocols that would allow networked computers to communicate transparently across multiple, linked packet networks. This was called the internetting project and the system of networks that emerged from the research was known as the "Internet." The system of protocols, which was developed over the course of this research effort, became known as the TCP/IP Protocol Suite, after the two initial protocols developed: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). Referencing document
The Internet becomes reality when the ARPANET is split into Military and Civilian sections.
Berkeley releases Unix 4.2BSD, including TCP/IP.
Internet Activities Board (IAB) established, replacing the Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB). Dave Clark continues to act as the chairman and a number of task forces were created to handle specific technological issues including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
1983--November
Paul Mockapetris of USC's Information Sciences Institute publishes RFCs 882 and 883 which outline the Domain Name Service. Paul's first implementation of a DNS server was called JEEVES. Kevin Dunlap and later Paul Vixe would soon write BIND, which is by far the most common implementation today.
1983--December
Mike Muuss writes Ping while at the US Army Ballistics Research Laboratory.
1984
The number of Internet hosts breaks 1000.
William Gibson coins the term 'cyberspace' in the novel 'Neuromancer'.
The Modified Final Judgement provides consumers with more choices for long distance services by 'breaking up' ATT.
JANET is created to serve higher-education in Britian.
Richard Stallman starts the GNU Project, and would later start the Free Software Foundation.
1985--April 1st
Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL) is started.
1986 – Prior to NSFNET
There were just over 1,000 hosts on the Internet
1986 -- NSF creates NSFNET (Backbone of Internet)
The National Science Foundation created NSFNET, and Internet backbone using 56k modem. This backbone connected five super-computing centers located in Pittsburgh, Princeton, UC-SD, UIUC, and Cornell.
After implementation of NSFNET there were over 10,000 hosts online.
Larry Wall creates the Practical Extraction And Reporting Language, Pearl. (it's name would soon be shortened to simply Perl)
1986--January
Mail Exchanger (MX) records are described by Craig Partridge in RFC974 joining mail records and DNS.
1986--February
RFC 977 is released by Brian Kantor and Phil Lapsley. It describes Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), which was created in an effort to make Usenet news faster and more efficient.
1987 –- Merit Network, INC., IBM, and MCI get involved
NSF signed and agreement with Merit Network, INC, who brought on IBM and MCI to cooperatively manage NSFNET.
1988 – - Two years after NSFNET birth
There were over 60,000 hosts were on the Internet.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is written by Jarkko Oikarinen.
NSFNET backbone upgraded to T1 (1.544Mbps), it handles more than 75 million packets a day.
The first transatlantic fiber-optic cable linking North America and Europe is completed, it can handle 40,000 telephone calls simultaneously.
Van Jacobson writes traceroute while at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs after a conversation with Steve Deering of Stanford University.
Bernard Daines creates the first Ethernet switch to add Ethernet support to Northern Telecom carrier-class telephone switches.
1988--November 2nd
The Internet Worm is released by Robert Morris Jr., affecting about 6,000 of the 60,000 hosts on the Internet. CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) is later formed by DARPA in response to concerns raised by the Worm.
1989
The number of Internet hosts breaks 100,000.
The IAB consolidates its growing list of task forces into two groups, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). The IETF (one of the original 10 Task Forces) was given near-term responsibility for developments and standards while the smaller IRTF focused on longer-range research. Steering, Working, and Research groups are all formed under the IETF and IRTF.
The first gateways between private electronic mail carriers and the Internet are established. Compuserve is connected through Ohio State University and MCI is connected through the Corporation for National Research Initiative.
The Cuckoo's Egg is written by Clifford Stoll. The book tells the real-life tale of a German cracker group who infiltrated numerous US facilities, and how Cliff traced and caught him after finding a 75 cent accounting error.
1989--March
First Web Project proposal is distributed by CERN's Tim Berners-Lee. His proposal was for a 'hypertext system' to aid the sharing of information between teams of researchers in the High Energy Physics community.
1990
Archie is released by Peter Deutsch, Alan Emtage, and Bill Heelan.
Patrick Naughton sends an angry resignation letter to the CEO of Sun Microsystems detailing the woeful state of the company's operating systems. The company commissions Naughton, Bill Joy, James Gosling, and three others to create a solution to the problem. They would create a simple object-oriented programming language named Oak, which would evolve into Java a few years later.
June 1 1990—ARPANET dismantled
The ARPANET ceases to exist.
Newer networks connected the sites ARPANET connected, therefore, ARPANET was no longer useful. When ARPANET was removed, no one suffered interruption in services. When ARPANET went down, the new technology, ie TCP/IP, found other paths for the information to travel.
The first World-Wide Web software is created by Tim Berners-Lee.
1991
The number of Internet hosts breaks 600,000.
NSF lifts restrictions on the commercial use of the NSFNET backbone.
The NSFNET backbone is upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps) as traffic passes 1 trillion bytes and 10 billion packets per month.
Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) is invented by Brewster Kahle.
Gopher is released by Paul Lindner and Mark P. McCahill from the University of Minnesota.
1991--March
Line mode browser (www) released to limited audience on priam vax, rs6000, and sun v4.
1991--June 12th
CERN has a computer seminar on WWW.
1991--August 6th
Line mode browser (www) is release on alt.hypertext. Later that month it is released on comp.sys.next, comp.text.sgml, and comp.mail.multi-media.
1991--October
The mailing lists www-interest (now www-announce) and [email protected] are started.
The number of Internet hosts breaks 1 million.
Tim Berners-Lee, CERN physicist in Switzerland, invented the World Wide Web (WWW). His research was based on hypertext a concept invented by Ted Nelson, part of Xanadu Project, in the ‘60s.
Hypertext allows an author to link a passage of text to another domument by clicking on an active link.
1992--January
The Internet Society (ISOC) is chartered.
1992--January 12th
The Line Mode Browser v1.1 (www) is made available by anonymous FTP.
1992--February 12th
Line mode v 1.2 announced on alt.hypertext, comp.infosystems, comp.mail.multi-media, cern.sting, comp.archives.admin, and several mailing lists.
1992--June
The term 'Surfing the Net' is coined by Jean Armour Polly.
The Internet Activities Board (IAB) meets and decides to build a new version of IP out of CLNP
1992--July
The first IAB IPv6 draft is withdrawn during an IETF meeting.
1992--November 17th
Veronica, a gopherspace search tool, is released by the University of Nevada.
1993
The number of Internet hosts breaks 2 million.
The White House and United Nations come on-line.
ISO 10646 - Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set is released.
The growth rate of the Web in 1993 was estimated at over 340,000 %
1993 - - InterNic established
1993--January
WinSock 1.1 is released. WinSock standardized APIs used to create Windows-based TCP/IP applications. It was started by Geoff Arnold and Martin Hall during Interop in 1991.
NCSA releases the first version of Marc Andreessen's 'Mosaic for X'.
There are about 50 HTTP servers.
1993--March
WWW (Port 80 HTTP) traffic measures 0.1% of NSF backbone traffic.
WWW presented at Online Publishing 93 in Pittsburgh.
1993--April
International Workshop on Hypermedia and Hypertext Standards is held in Amsterdam.
1993--May
NSF awards Network Solutions the InterNIC contract worth $5.9 million a year until March 31, 1998 when the contract expires. They begin registering domains at the rate of almost 400 per month.
1993--August
The first World-Wide Web developers' conference is held in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1993--September
Mosaic is released for Macintosh and Windows.
1993--October
There are over 500 known HTTP servers.
1993--December
Marc Andressen leaves the NCSA to work for a small software company. He soon forms a partnership with SGI founder Jim Clark that will become Netscape Communications Corp.
FreeBSD 1.0 is released.
The web grows at a 341,634% annual growth, Gopher grows at 997%.
The NSFNET backbone is upgraded to ATM (155mbps) as traffic passes 10 trillion bytes per month.
The first cyberbank, 'First Virtual', opens.
1994--March
Marc Andressen and Jim Clark form Mosaic Communications Corp. (now Netscape Communications).
1994--April 12th
Canter and Siegel "spam" the Internet with postings advertising green card lottery services, many Internet users fight back.
1994--May 25th
The first international WWW conference is held at CERN in Geneva. It is heavily oversubscribed and known as the 'Woodstock of the Web'.
1994--July
The number of Internet hosts breaks 3 million.
The final specifications for IPv6 are released by IAB, they recommend 128 bit addresses, enough to number 1 quadrillion computers connected through 1 trillion networks.
1994--August
The International WWW Conference Committee (IW3C2) is created by CERN and the NCSA.
1994--September 1st
The Internet/ARPANET celebrates its 25th anniversary.
1994--October
Network Solutions Inc. reports that it is registering domain names at the rate of 2,000 per month.
The second international WWW Conference is held in Chicago and is called 'Mosaic and the Web'.
1994--November
VRML 1.0 Draft is released by Gavin Bell, Tony Parisi, and Mark Pesce.
1994--December
National Science Foundation advisory committee recommends moving to a user-fee system for registering domain names as soon as possible.
1994--December 14th
The first meeting of the World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is held in Cambridge. W3C had been created by Tim Berners-Lee and Al Vezza.
1994--December 16th
CERN gets funding for the Large Hadron Collider and decides to discontinue WWW development enorder to refocus on particle physics. CERN hands projects over to INRIA.
The number of Internet hosts breaks 4 million.
1995--March
The Apache web server project is started.
1995--April 30th
The National Science Foundation stops funding the NSFNET backbone and establishes the Very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) to serve the research community.
1995--May (Java)
Scientific Applications International Corp. (SAIC) of San Diego acquires Network Solutions Inc. as a wholly owned subsidiary.
1995--September 14th
NSF and NSI announce that domain registration will no longer be free of charge effective immediately. According to the plan new registrants will pay a $100 fee for a two-year registration; and thereafter will pay $50 per year. Organizations registered prior to September 14, 1995 will be charged the $50 annual fee on the anniversary of their initial registration. EDU domains are still paid for by the NSF.
1995--October 24th
The FNC unanimously passes a resolution defining the term Internet.
1995--December
RFC 1883 - 'Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification is released, detailing how IPv6 should work.
1996
The Telecommunications Reform Act is passed, opening local and long distance markets to full competition. The act also included a provision called the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which would be later declared unconstitutional because of its vague wording in 1997.
In response to the CDA the EFF launches its famous Blue Ribbon Campaign.
1996--January
1996--April
MCI upgrades its backbone to 622Mbps.
1996--June 24th
After repeated threats via email and snail mail Network Solutions drops 9272 domain names from its DNS tables for failure to pay their domain name fees.
1997 January
1997--February
The 2000th RFC titled 'Internet Official Protocol Standards' is released.
1997--May 1st
The IAHC is dissolved.
1997--June 26th
The Communications Decency Act (part of the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act) is declared unconstitutional in the case of Reno vs ACLU.
1997--July 17th
Human error at Network Solutions causes DNS tables for .net and .com to become corrupted leaving most domain names unreachable while clean databases are distributed.
1997--December 22nd
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) begins operation.
1998--January
The US Commerce Department releases its 'Green Paper' proposal, intended to clarify how the domain name registration system should be handled in the future.
1998--February
Jon Postel performs a test to determine how easily management of the Domain Name System could be transferred from one machine to another. The test is successful despite widespread criticism in the press because of his lack of coordination with the US Government.