7 Defining Moments In Internet Creation

Right now, in this day and age, the internetdeveloped for the military to exchange
encompasses many aspects our lives, crossinginformation. It sent data in packets, much like
many categories that are not even related in thewhat the current internet does! Four nodes in
slightest. Research work? Not a problem. Want todifferent universities formed this primitive
buy groceries? Order online. Music? We havenetwork. If ARPANET had not worked, the
download sites everywhere. Planning yourinternet could have been set back another
overseas honeymoon in a luxurious hotel? Open adecade.
browser and find a deal. Moving to another4. E-mail is invented. 1971 marked an important
country? Look up requirements in Google, andyear for the internet, with the creation of e-mail,
forums on that country while you're at it. Need tosending letters across the internet. It is still a
know the weather? Check out weather sites tomainstay in internet communications, and will
zap that info directly on your desktop.probably be used throughout a person's internet
In this world of such convenience, sometimes welife.
have to look back to see what started it all. So5. International networks. 1973 saw the first
here are, for me, the most important momentsinternational internet connection. At around this
of the internet, ones that changed the lives oftime, Ethernet, gateway protocols, and FTP are
people everywhere.invented. It became apparent that you can
1. Invention of the Telegraph and Telephone.connect computers on a global scale! 1976 further
Samuel Morse invented the telegraph that wascemented this, as networking spread to more and
quickly adopted by America for practical use.more computers.
Alexander Graham Bell officially invented the6. Internet boom. At around 1983-1984, a large
telephone as we know it today, successfullynumber of nodes were created because of name
testing it in March 10, 1876. Why is this a definingservers and DNS, using names instead of
moment? These two devices were the first onesnumbers which made it easier to remember and
ever to send information over a distance quickly.communicate with. Another reason for the boom
The phone lines and cables that resulted still formwas the spread of desktop computers, enabling
an important backbone to the internet today.more people to connect.
Phones also convert an electronic signal to an7. World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee released the
analog one, the basis of modems.WWW as we know it, which provided easy
2. Launch of Sputnik 1. This USSR craft launchedinformation to anywhere in the world with much
on October 4, 1957, the first artificial satellite. Itsimpler methods. Browsers came out. Multimedia
was the dawn of global telecommunications.is released a year later.
Satellites today transmit all kinds of data all overThe internet took almost a century to finally
the world, including the internet!morph into what we know today. It's amazing
3. Creation of ARPANET. Known as thehow progress works, indeed.
predecessor of the internet, ARPANET was