BRIEF HISTORY of the INTERNET

The Internet originated in the late 1960s when the United States Defense Department developed ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency network), an experimental network of computers designed to withstand partial outages such as a bomb attack. The agency sought to create a web of computers that could continue to communicate with each other, even if some of the computers were disabled. In the mid-1980s, when desktop computer workstations became increasingly popular, organizations wanted to connect their local area networks (LANs) to ARPAnet. If computers could link together and share resources, everyone would benefit.

To help speed the connections, the National Science Foundation (NSF) established five super computing centers in 1986, creating the NSFnet backbone. In 1987, the NSF signed a cooperative agreement to manage the NSFnet backbone with Merit Network, Inc., and by 1990, ARPAnet had been phased out. NSFnet continued to grow, and more and more countries around the world connected to this Internet backbone.

1991 was a big year for the Internet: The National Research and Education Network (NREN) was founded and the World Wide Web was released. The Internet is still dominated by scientists and other academics, but begins to attract public interest. With the release of the Mosaic Web browser in 1993 and Netscape in 1994, interest in and use of the World Wide Web exploded. More and more communities become wired, enabling direct connections to the Internet. In 1995, the U.S. federal government relinquished its management role in the Internet and NSFnet reverted back to being a research network. Interconnected network providers are strong enough now to support U.S. backbone traffic on the Internet. However, the presidential administration encourages continued development of the U.S. backbone of the Internet, also knows as the National Information Infrastructure (NII)-- and, most commonly, as the "Information Superhighway".

SEE Timeline of Internet History

http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HI T.html

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