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USSR launches Sputnik
The Soviet Union successfully launched the satellite Sputnik and started the race for technology.
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Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) is created
Found a way that computers can talk to each other in case of nuclear attack. -
First paper on the packet switching theory
It was published by Leonard Kleinrock at MIT and was later turned into a book in 1964. He went on to convince other influencial people, including Lawrence G. Roberts, about his theory to use packets instead of circuits for communications, something that was very important for computer networking.
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Computers at Stanford and UCLA connected for the first time
The first hosts on what would one day become the Internet. -
An Arpanet network was established
Network between Harvard, MIT, and BBN (the company that created the "interface message processor" computers used to connect to the network) in 1970 was created. -
Email was first developed
Developed by Ray Tomlinson, who also made the decision to use the "@" symbol to separate the user name from the computer name (which later on became the domain name). -
The beginning of TCP/IP
A proposal was published to link Arpa-like networks together into a so-called "inter-network", which would have no central control and would work around a transmission control protocol (which eventually became TCP/IP). -
The first Personal Computer Modem is Invented
The modem was invented by Dennis Hayes and Dale Heatherington, and was introduced and initially sold to computer hobbyists. -
Spam is born
The first unsolicited commercial email message(later known as spam), was sent out to 600 California Arpanet users by Gary Thuerk. -
MUD
The earliest form of multiplayer games was debuted- The precursor to World of Warcraft and Second Life was developed in 1979, and was called MUD (short for MultiUser Dungeon). MUDs were entirely text-based virtual worlds, combining elements of role-playing games, interactive, fiction, and online chat. -
The first emoticon
The first emoticon was used While many people credit Kevin MacKenzie with the invention of the emoticon in 1979, it was Scott Fahlman in 1982 who proposed using :-) after a joke, rather than the original -) proposed by MacKenzie. -
The first Domain Name Servers (DNS) was created
The domain name system was important in that it made addresses on the Internet more human-friendly compared to its numerical IP address counterparts. DNS servers allowed Internet users to type in an easy-to-remember domain name and then converted it to the IP address automatically. -
First email in Germany
The first email to Germany from the United States saying, "Willkommen CSNET," (Welcome CSNET), largely thanks to Werner Zorn.
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AIM is created
AOL's Instant Messenger chat server is launched. Its original greeting was "You've got mail!" This starts the surge of instant messengers.
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World Wide Web protocols finished
The code for the World Wide Web was written by Tim Berners-Lee, based on his proposal from the year before, along with the standards for HTML, HTTP, and URLs. -
First web page created
1991 brought some major innovations to the world of the Internet. The first web page was created and, much like the first email explained what email was, its purpose was to explain what the World Wide Web was. -
The first picture is uploaded on the Internet
Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, uploads a picture of an "all-girl science rock band" called Les Les Horribles Cernettes.
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Internet Explorer is released
Microsoft's world wide web server, Internet Explorer, was launched and continued to be updated until it was better than the other browsers available at the time.
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Google is created
Google, a search engine designed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, is created. source -
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Nii Quaynor brings Internet to Africa
Known as "the father of the African Internet", Nii Quaynor didn't want the continent to be left behind the Internet surge, so he started the network workshops and kick-started the growth of the Internet in Africa.
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