The Internet is without a doubt one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. From its origins, it
opened the door to new technological developments that continue even today, transforming the way
we live and relate to each other.
Nowadays, living without the Internet is simply unthinkable.
For this reason, we have decided to explore the timeline of the Internet to discover its origins and go
through the key moments of its evolution to understand its effects on the globalized world and
the digital transformation that marks the 21st century.
Enjoy reading!
Origin of the Internet
Forty years ago, while the main means spain telegram data of communication were the telegraph and
the telephone, computers were large machines that performed calculations and stored information, so
their use was simply scientific or governmental.
So how did we come to live in a so-called Information Society where technology pervades every aspect
of our lives? To find the answer, we must go back to the history of the Internet.
The year was 1957, the Cold War pitted the United States and the Soviet Union against each other in
ideological, economic, political, military and of course technological terms.
Because of the conflict, the United States was interested in finding a way to protect its
information and communications in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack . Innovations that
attempted to solve this problem led to what we know today as the Internet.
Early concepts and purposes of the Internet
I will now tell you about the first facebook power editor: what it is and how to use the tool events that
gave rise to the Internet:
HARP
Just as the USSR launched the first artificial satellite in history, Sputnik 1, the USA created the
Advanced Defense Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in response in 1958.
ARPA is key in the history of the Internet, as it was responsible for the research and
development of new technologies for defensive and military purposes, including computer networks
.
Packet switching theory and the Galactic Network
In 1961, Leonard Kleinrock presented saudi phone number his packet switching theory in his MIT
doctoral thesis.
He claimed that two servers could communicate to send and receive information carried by packets
across a network of nodes.
These packets could take different paths depending on network saturation, and be remade upon
reaching their destination.
It was in 1962 when JCR Licklider , head of ARPA and pioneer of the Internet, described the
concept of a Galactic Network to quickly access data from anywhere in the world.
Separately, Paul Baran was working on packet switching at the RAND Corporation. In 1962 he
presented a communications system that, using computers connected to a decentralized network, was
immune to external attacks, since if one or more nodes were destroyed, the others could continue to
function.
The goal was achieved! If this technology were developed on a large scale, US information would be
protected since it could be accessed from any computer.
First wide area network (WAN)
The big step in the history of the Internet came in 1965 when Lawrence G. Roberts in Massachusetts and Thomas Merrill in California connected a TX2 computer to a Q-32 using a low-speed dial-up telephone line.
The experiment was a success and is marked as the milestone that created the first wide area network (WAN) in history.
ARPANET
The history of the Internet continues in 1966 when Roberts joined ARPA and created the ARPANET
plan to develop the first packet-switched network together with Robert Kahn and Howard Frank.
Although in 1968 the United Kingdom’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) had already designed the
first prototype of a decentralized network based on packet switching, it would not be until 1969 when
a computer at the University of California (UCLA) successfully connected to another at the Stanford
Research Institute (SRI).
The node connection was so successful that months later four American universities were already interconnected. ARPANET was born!
Birth of NCP and email
By 1970, ARPANET was well established with hundreds of connected computers.
S. Crocker and his team at the Network Working Group established the control protocol called
Network Control Protocol (NCP), which allowed the development of applications from computers that
were connected to ARPANET.
This is how Ray Tomlinson created the basic email software in 1972 , becoming the most important
application during the decade, as it changed the nature of communication and collaboration between people.
Such was its impact that ARPANET was increasingly moving away from military use and toward scientific use for the dissemination of information. Thus, by 1974, more than 50 American universities were connected to ARPANET.