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The History of the Internet

War seems to be the platform for most inventions and the Internet is no exception. Originally called ARPANET, designed in the 1960's as a bombproof network system. J.C.R Licklider of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), developed the theory of 'packet switching', this was the basis of Internet connections as we know it today. In 1965 Lawrence Roberts also of MIT connected a computer in Massachusetts with another in California over dial-up telephone lines.

In December 1969 Bob Khan of BBN Technologies then Bolt Beranek and Newman in Massachusetts connected four universities by computers.

The early 70's saw many more universities and corporations joining the Internet.
Charlie Kline holds the claim to fame for sending the first packets on ARPANET, this was on October 29 1969, however the system crashed on typing the letter G in LOGIN. Still effectively the first person to use the Internet!

Is it a myth that Al Gore invented the Internet?
According to a CNN transcript of an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Al Gore is recorded as saying; "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Al Gore wasn't in Congress in 1969 when ARPANET began nor in 1974 when the term 'Internet' was first used. In actual fact Al Gore was elected to Congress in 1976.

Our user-friendly warm and welcoming Internet today, bares little or no resemblance to the early complex system used only by techies. There were no laptops, let alone individual office desktops.

Ray Tomlinson of BBN forged e-mail to suit ARPANET in 1972. The @ symbol was a natural choice because it was available in teletype.

As the community grew, a Request for Comments (RFC) was published in 1972 as an invitation for the community to input ideas about developing the Telnet protocol, enabling file transfers between Internet sites. The result was published in 1973.

The Information Super Highway was developing fast and what better resources than libraries. Frederick G. Kilgour of the Ohio College Library Center focussed upon networking is area libraries during the 1960's and 1970's. From the mid 70's other counties joined the network forcing it from a national network to an international network. The world could now access the information … if only they knew how to!

In 1974 Ethernet made its real debut for many local network thanks to Bob Metcalf, a Harvard student. Despite his dissertation on 'Packet Networks' being rejected for lack of analytical content, it later was accepted after he revised it.

BBN were certainly major players and Bob Kahn looked at introducing the TCP/IP architecture together with Vint Cerf of Stanford. In 1980 the Defense Department replaced they existing Network Control Protocol with TCP/IP in 1983.

Email, FPT and Telnet commands became standardised, the ease of networking and communicating to colleagues and clients the world over opened the Internet to almost everyone.

The History of the Internet Part Two. Internet Marketing - Avoiding SEO Scams
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