10 milestones in the evolution of the Internet

This list is from Hobbes' Internet Timeline, a timeline highlighting some of the key events that helped shape the Internet as we know it today. You can receive the full timeline by sending e-mail to timeline@hobbes.mitre.org.
  1. 1960's: Packet-switching was invented.
  2. 1969: ARPANET commissioned by the Department of Defense for research into internetowkring. The first four computers were connected.
  3. 1969: First Request for Comment (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker
  4. 1972: InterNetworking Working Group (INWG) created to address need for establishing protocols. Chairman: Vinton Cerf.
  5. 1973: First international connections to the ARPANET: England and Norway.
  6. 1976: UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later.
  7. 1979: USENET established using UUCP between Duke and UNC.
  8. 1981: BITNet, the "Because Its Time Network" started as a cooperative network at the City University of New York.
  9. 1982: INWG establishes the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). The Department of Defence declares TCP/IP suite to be standard. This leads to one of the first definition of an "internet" as a connected set of networks, specifically those using TCP/IP, and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets.
  10. 1983: Name server developed at U of Wisconsin, no longer requiring users to know the exact path to other systems.
  11. 1984: Domain Name Server introduced as the number of hosts breaks 1,000
  12. 1986: NSFNET created with 56Kbps backbone
  13. 1987: 1,000th RFC: "Request For Comments reference guide". Number of hosts breaks 10,000.
  14. 1988: The Internet worm burrows through the Net
  15. 1989: Number of hosts breaks 100,000. NSFNET backbone upgraded to T1 (1.544 MBPS)
  16. 1990: ARPANET ceases to exist
  17. 1991: Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) Association formed
  18. 1992: Internet Society is chartered. World Wide Web announced by CERN. Number of hosts breaks 1,000,000. NSFNET backbone upgraded to T3 (44.736 MBPS)
  19. 1993: InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services. Businesses and media really take notice of the Internet and Mosaic takes the Internet by storm.
  20. 1994: Communities begin to be wired up directly to the Internet. Shopping malls arrive on the Internet and mass marketing finds its way to the Internet with mass e-mailings. Worms of a new kind find their way around the Net - WWW Worms (W4), joined by Spiders, Wanderers, Crawlers, and Snakes.

Internet Top Ten Lists Table of Contents | Previous List | Next List

Copyright © 1994, 1995, 2004 by Kevin Savetz. The information in this book was collected in 1994-1995 and has not been updated since.