USSR Launches Sputnik into space and, with it, global communications.

Bell Labs researchers invent the modem (modulator - demodulator), which converts digital signals to electrical (analog) signals and back, enabling communication between computers.

The United States government creates the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in response to Sputnik launch.

Leonard Kleinrock pioneers the packet-switching concept in his Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doctoral thesis about queueing theory: Information Flow in Large Communication Nets.

J.C.R. Licklider writes memos about his Intergalactic Network concept of networked computers and becomes the first head of the computer research program at ARPA.

The first universal standard for computers, ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Exchange) is developed by a joint industry-government committee. ASCII permits machines from different manufacturers to exchange data.

The Rand Corporation's Paul Baran develops message blocks in the U.S., while Donald Watts Davies, at the National Physical Laboratory in Britain, simultaneously creates a similar technology called packet-switching. The technology revolutionizes data communications.

ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of time-sharing computers."

Lawrence Roberts (MIT) and Thomas Marill get an ARPA contract to create the first wide-area network (WAN) connection via long distant dial-up between a TX-2 computer in Massachusetts and a Q-32 computer in California. The system confirms that packet switching offers the most promising model for communication between computers.

As ARPA director, Charles Herzfeld approves funding to develop a networking experiment that would tie together multiple universities funded by the agency. The result would be the ARPAnet, the first packet network and a predecessor to today’s Internet.

Building on the 1965 “Cooperative Network of Time-sharing Computers” study, MIT’s Lawrence Roberts comes to ARPA to conduct the networking experiment and develop the first ARPAnet plan ("Towards a Cooperative Network of Time-Shared Computers").

Lawrence Roberts leads ARPAnet design discussions and publishes first ARPAnet design paper: "Multiple Computer Networks and Intercomputer Communication."  Wesley Clark suggests the network is managed by interconnected ‘Interface Message Processors’ in front of the major computers. Called IMPs, they evolve into today’s routers.

Donald Watts Davies of the National Physical Laboratory in England publishes his paper on “packet-switching,” the term he coins.

Danny Cohen develops the first real-time visual flight simulator on a general purpose computer and the first real-time radar simulator. His flight simulator work leads to the development of the Cohen-Sutherland computer graphics line clipping algorithms, created with Ivan Sutherland.

Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) is awarded the ARPA contract to build the Interface Message Processors. 

US Senator Edward Kennedy sends BBN a congratulatory telegram on winning the ARPA contract to build the "Interfaith" Message Processors.

Steve Crocker heads UCLA Network Working Group under Professor Leonard Kleinrock to develop host level protocols for ARPAnet communication in preparation for becoming the first node.  The group, which includes Vint Cerf and Jon Postel, lays the foundation for protocols of the modern Internet.

The physical Interface Message Processor (IMP) network is constructed, linking four nodes: University of California at Los Angeles, SRI (in Stanford), University of California at Santa Barbara, and University of Utah.

The first data packets are sent between networked computers on October 29th by Charley Kline at UCLA, under supervision of Professor Leonard Kleinrock. The first attempt resulted in the system crashing as the letter G of “Login” was entered.  The second attempt was successful.

Professor Peter Kirstein of University College London starts the first European ARPAnet node with transatlantic IP connectivity.

Fifteen nodes (23 hosts) comprise the IMP network.

Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents the email program to send messages across a distributed network.  The "@" sign is chosen from the punctuation keys on Tomlinson's Model 33 Teletype to separate local from global emails, making "user@host" the email standard.

Robert Kahn demonstrates the ARPAnet to the public for the first time by connecting 20 different computers at the International Computer Communication Conference, and in doing so, imparts the importance of packet-switching technology.

While at the Information Science Institute, Jon Postel helps create the first Internet address registry, which later becomes Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). This administers IP addresses and other critical Internet functions. 

Louis Pouzin leads the French effort to build CYCLADES, France’s version of the ARPAnet.

Development begins on what will eventually be called TCP/IP protocol by a group headed by Vint Cerf (Stanford) and Robert Kahn (DARPA). The new protocol will allow diverse computer networks to interconnect and communicate with each other.

Danny Cohen was the first to implement “packet video” and “packet voice” (Network Voice Protocol) when he adapted the visual flight simulator to run over the ARPANET in 1973.  It was the first application of packet switching to real-time applications. 

The first international connection to the ARPAnet is made by University College of London (England) via NORSAR (Norway).

Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler begins to help lead SRI International’s Network Information Center (NIC), where her group eventually develops the first Internet “yellow-” and “white-page” servers, the first query-based network host name and address (WHOIS) server, and the Host Naming Registry for the Internet. As a part of this effort she and her group develop the top-level domain naming schemes of .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .org, and .net.

Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" which specifies in detail the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP) and coins the term “Internet” for the first time.

Lawrence Roberts helps Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) found Telenet, the first public packet data service, a commercial version of ARPAnet.

Lawrence Landweber creates CSNET (Computer Science Network), a network for all US university and industrial computer research groups.  By 1984, over 180 university, industrial, and government computer science departments are participating in CSNET. 

Lawrence Landweber establishes the first network gateways between the U.S. and European countries. He also establishes the “Landweber Conferences,” which are instrumental in showing scientists from around the world how to implement national academic and research networks in their countries.

Danny Cohen adapts the visual simulator to run over the ARPAnet, the first application of packet- switching networks to real-time applications.

Kilnam Chon, a Professor at Keio University in Japan, develops the first Internet connection in Asia, called SDN, and his pioneering work inspires others to promote the Internet’s regional growth.

Paul Mockapetris expands the Internet beyond its academic origins by inventing the Domain Name System (DNS). John Klensin helps facilitate early procedural and definitional work for DNS administration and top-level domain definitions.

Nancy Hafkin helps facilitate the ECA’s African Information Society Initiative, which establishes the first email connectivity in more than 10 African countries.

Daniel Karrenberg helps build EUnet, the first pan-European Internet Service Provider.  By 1989, Karrenberg helps found Reseaux IP Europeens (RIPE), the key collaborative forum for Internet coordination in Europe.  He also leads the formation of the world’s first Regional Internet Registry, the RIPE Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC).

Van Jacobson develops algorithms for the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) that help solve the problem of congestion and are still used in over 90% of Internet hosts today.

Geoff Huston leads the effort to bring the Internet from the academic and research sector to the Australian public.  Through his work with Australian communications service provider, Telstra, he helps facilitate the large-scale deployment of the Internet across Australia and as a transit service provider in the Asia Pacific region.

At CERN, the European Physical Laboratory, Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web. Robert Cailliau is a key proponent of the project, and helps Berners-Lee author a proposal for funding.  Later, Cailliau develops, along with Nicola Pellow, the first web browser for the Mac OS operating system.

Brewster Kahle invents the Internet’s first publishing system, WAIS (Wide Area Information Server) and founds WAIS, Inc.  A precursor to today’s search engines, WAIS is one of the first programs to index large amounts of data and make it searchable across large networks.

Linus Torvalds creates Linux and becomes a leading supporter of Open Source software.

Toru Takahashi helps bring the Internet to Japan and promotes it throughout Asia in the 1990s. He is key to the early commercial development of the Internet in the region.

Philip Zimmermann creates Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), an email encryption software package that's published for free.  Originally designed as a human rights tool, PGP becomes one of the most widely used email encryption softwares in the world.

Al Gore creates the High-performance Computing and Communications Act of 1991 (the Gore Bill), which allocates $600 million for high performance computing and helps create the National Research and Educational Network.  The Gore Bill also creates the National Information Infrastructure, known as the Information Superhighway.

The World Wide Web is made available to the public for the first time on the Internet. 

Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn found the Internet Society. Meanwhile, hosts on the Internet pass the one million mark.

Randy Bush  and John Klensin found the non-profit Network Startup Resource Center to develop and deploy Internet networking technology to dozens of countries throughout the world.

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) releases the Mosaic browser, which helps popularize the World Wide Web among the general public.

There is more email than postal mail in the U.S., and Brewster Kahle founds the Internet Archive, a free digital library with a mission to provide “universal access to all knowledge.”  Chronicling over 85 billion pieces of deep Web geology, Kahle creates a history of the Internet’s formation. 

The advent of web publishing tools available to non-technical users spurs the rise of blogs.

Tan Tin Wee founds the multilingual Internet domain name system and is instrumental in its internationalization.  In the 1990s, under his leadership, Singapore hosts the first Chinese and Tamil websites. He is widely recognized for his award-winning technological efforts in the Tamil-speaking community and guides the development of the Tamil Internet.

Mitchell Baker gets involved in the Mozilla Project and becomes a founding chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation.  She helps legitimize Open Source Internet application clients.

Craig Newmark founds Craigslist, which is to become one of the most widely used websites on the Internet.  He changes the way people used classifieds, transforming it into a largely Internet-based industry.

Jimmy Wales launches Wikipedia.  There are half a million Internet users.

Dr. Nancy Hafkin authors Cinderella or Cyberella?: Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society, a collection of essays that examines how information and communications technologies empower women.

By 2010, there are over 450 million Chinese Internet users.

Live streaming of Will and Kate’s wedding is the biggest event ever watched on the Internet, and UCLA, where the first ARPAnet node was built,  opens its Internet History Center.

The Internet Society founds the Internet Hall of Fame and the first 33 members are inducted in a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland.