Developed distributed network and packet-switching ideas at RAND in the early 1960s
Donald Davies
At the UK’s National Physical Laboratory, devised packet switching and coined the term
Leonard Kleinrock
Contributed early theory of packet networks; his UCLA lab sent the first ARPANET message
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn
Designed the TCP/IP protocols from 1974
Tim Berners-Lee
Proposed and built the World Wide Web at CERN
Illustrative photograph, not the original artifact. Photograph: Brett Sayles / Pexels
About this date
The first ARPANET message was sent on 29 October 1969. ARPANET adopted the TCP/IP protocols on 1 January 1983. Tim Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web in 1989; the first website went live in 1991.
About credit
The Internet and the World Wide Web are different things. The Internet is the network of networks; the web is a system for linking documents that runs on it. Many people contributed across countries and decades.
Chapter II
The world before
Information was held in places
To learn something, you went to a library, a classroom or an expert. To reach someone far away, you wrote, telephoned or travelled.
Computers existed but mostly worked alone. Sharing data meant moving tapes or disks, or dedicating a telephone line to a single connection.
II
The human achievement
A network designed to be shared
In the early 1960s, Paul Baran at RAND explored resilient, distributed networks; independently, Donald Davies at Britain’s National Physical Laboratory developed packet switching and named it. The U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) funded ARPANET, and on 29 October 1969 Charley Kline sent the first message from UCLA to Stanford Research Institute. The system crashed after “LO”, the first two letters of “LOGIN”.
Different networks needed a common language. From 1974 Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn designed TCP/IP, and ARPANET switched to it on 1 January 1983. Email, developed by Ray Tomlinson in 1971, had already become its most popular use.
In 1989, at CERN near Geneva, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a system of linked documents. The first website went online in 1991, and in April 1993 CERN placed the web’s software in the public domain.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
The Internet moves data by cutting it into packets and routing each one separately.
01
Step 01 of 04
Split into packets
A file or message is divided into small numbered pieces, each labelled with its destination.
Split into packets
Routers choose a path
Agreed protocols
Reassemble at the end
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Knowledge
Encyclopaedias, journals, lectures and archives are accessible to anyone with a connection.
Communication
Email, messaging and video calls link people across the planet instantly.
Commerce
Shopping, banking and entire industries moved online.
Society
Information, and misinformation, now spreads globally in moments, challenging institutions and individuals alike.
It connected most of humanity to a shared network of information and communication. ITU estimates indicate more than five billion people, roughly two-thirds of the world, were online by 2023.
V
Before and after
Life before and after The Internet
Before
A trip to the library and a search through shelves.
After
A search across billions of pages from your home.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
