From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Internet & Networking Outline

The Royal Road
(Circa 450 BCE – 420 BCE)

The Hydraulic Telegraph
(350 BCE)

The Cursus publicus
(Circa 20 BCE)

Faster than a Messenger on Horseback
(March 2, 1791)

The Chappe Telegraph
(1794)

Morse Transmits the First Message by Morse Code
(May 24, 1844)

An Information Bridge Across the Ocean
(1845)

The Railroad also Becomes an Information Distribution Network
(1848)

The First Telegraph Cable between England and France
(1850)

Using a Fleet of 45 Carrier Pigeons to Deliver News
(1850)

Speeding Communication between Paris and London
(1854)

Reuters Expands, Following Telegraph Lines
(1858)

New York and San Francisco are Connected by Telegraph
(1861)

The Atlantic Cable Snaps after 1200 Miles
(July 1865)

The Third and Successful Atlantic Cable
(July 27, 1866)

Earliest Fictional Account of a Universal Library
(1901)

An Early Sci-Fi View of the Internet and Virtual Reality
(November 1909)

The First Transcontinental Telephone Call
(January 25, 1915)

Using 64,000 Human Computers to Predict the Weather
(1922)

H. G. Wells and the "World Brain"
(1938)

Borges' Universe as a Library, or Universal Library
(1941)

"As We May Think"
(July 1945)

The Hamming Codes
(1950)

The First Transatlantic Telephone Cable
(September 25, 1956)

Precursor of Word Processing and Email
(1961)

"Dial F for Frankenstein"
(1961)

First Paper on Data Networking Theory
(May 31, 1961)

Packet Switching
(April 1962)

"Online Man-Computer Communication"
(Circa June 1962)

The Information Processing Techniques Office
(October 1, 1962)

The "Intergalactic Computer Network"
(April 25, 1963)

Mathematical Theory of Data Communications
(1964)

On Distributed Communications
(1964)

The First Online Reservation System
(1964)

Creation of ARPANET
(November 1964)

Email Begins
(1965)

Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Hyperlink
(1965)

Optical Fibers Proposed as a Medium for Communication
(1965)

The First "Actual Network Experiment"
(October 1965)

Describing Networking Research at MIT
(October 1966)

Roberts Begins the Design of the ARPANET
(December 1966)

An Experiment in Packet Switching
(1967)

The First Hypertext Editing System
(1967)

Interface Message Processors
(April 1967)

Protecting Security in a Networked Environment
(Circa May – September 1967)

Introduction of the Term "Packet"
(October 1967)

The First Paper on the Design of the ARPANET
(October 1967)

Features of the Future ARPANET
(1968)

UNIX: Making Open Systems Possible
(1969)

The First Commercial Online Service
(1969)

Peer to Peer Architecture
(April 7, 1969)

The First ARPANET Node
(August 30, 1969)

The First Message Sent Over the ARPANET
(October 29, 1969)

The First Packet-Switched Data Network
(1970)

Optical Fibers for the Internet Backbone
(1970)

ARPANET Spans the U.S.
(March 1970)

The Arpanet has 15 Nodes
(1971)

The @ in Email
(March 1971)

The First Email Management Program
(July 1971)

Probably the World's First Online Community
(1973)

First Public Computerized Bulletin Board System
(1973)

The First International Connections to ARPANET
(1973)

Invention of the Word "Internet"
(Circa 1973)

Systems Network Architecture
(1974)

SGML is Invented
(1974)

TCP
(May 1974)

Ethernet
(1975)

The Warez Scene
(Circa 1975)

First Detailed Description of Ethernet
(July 1976)

TCP/IP
(July 1976)

The First Intentional Spam
(May 1, 1977)

The Network Nation
(1978)

Compuserve
(1979)

Robert Metcalf Founds 3Com
(1979)

USENET: One of the First Computer Network Communications Systems
(1980)

There are 213 Hosts on the Arpanet
(1981)

CSNET
(1981)

TCP/IP as the Basis for ARPANET
(1982)

Untitled
(1983)

ARPANET Requires TCP/IP
(January 1, 1983)

Domain Name System
(November 1983)

Coining the Term Computer Virus
(November 10, 1983)

Moderated Newsgroups
(1984)

There are Over 1000 Hosts on the Internet
(1984)

Breakup of AT&T
(January 1, 1984)

Cisco Systems
(December 1984)

The First Registered Internet Domain
(March 15, 1985)

One of the First Online Communities
(April 1, 1985)

Origins of AOL
(May 1, 1985)

There are Over 5000 Hosts on ARPANET
(1986)

The Internet Backbone is Funded
(1986)

NSFNET
(1986)

First PC Virus Epidemic
(January 1986)

SGML Standard is Accepted
(October 1986)

There are Over 10,000 Hosts on the Internet
(1987)

One of the First Successful Hypermedia Systems Before the Web
(1987)

Foundation of the First Commercial ISP
(May 12, 1987)

"Toward a National Research Telecommunications Network"
(November 1987)

The First Commercial Network-Based Groupware Program
(1988)

International Standard for Computer-to-Computer Information Retrieval
(1988)

The Unicode Universal Character Set
(August 29, 1988)

The First Computer Worm to Attract Wide Attention
(November 2, 1988)

There are over 100,000 Hosts on the Internet
(1989)

The First Gateways Between Private E-Mail Carriers and the Internet
(1989)

Invention of "Buffered Media," the Basis for Webcasting
(1989)

An Internet-Based Hypertext System
(March 1989)

The First "Search Engine" but Not a "Web Search Engine"
(1990)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is Founded
(1990)

Coalition for Networked Information
(1990)

ARPANET Folds into the Internet
(1990)

Berners-Lee Plans the World Wide Web
(November 12, 1990)

The First Web Page
(November 13, 1990)

The First Web Browser and Web Server
(December 25, 1990)

"Clearing the Way for Electronic Commerce"
(1991)

The First Webcam
(1991)

The WAIS System for Searching Text is Introduced
(1991)

First Release of the First Web Browser
(March 1991)

Berners-Lee Makes Web Server and Web Browser Software Available at No Cost
(August 6, 1991)

The Gopher Protocol
(September 1991)

Cyberspace Law
(October 29, 1991)

The First Web Server in North America
(December 12, 1991)

The First Image Posted to the Web
(1992)

The Internet Society
(1992)

Pioneering Collaboration of Electronic Librarianship, Journalism and Telecommunications
(1992)

There are 50 Web Servers on the Internet
(1992)

341,634 Percent Growth Rate on the Internet
(1993)

First Library of Digital Images on the Internet
(1993)

Only About 2000 People in China Use the Internet
(1993)

W3C
(1993)

The First Successful Telepresence Company
(1993)

Estimate of Total Internet Traffic in 1993
(1993)

There are 250 Web Servers on the Internet
(1993)

The Mosaic Web Browser
(March 4, 1993)

The First Graphics-Based Web Browser
(April 22, 1993)

CERN Releases Rights to World Wide Web Software
(April 30, 1993)

The First Commercial Website with the First Online Advertising
(May 1993)

The First Web Search Engine?
(June 1993)

The Beginning of Video Webcasting over the Internet
(June 1993)

Size and Growth Rate of the Internet in 1993
(November 3, 1993)

The First Web Search Engine?
(November 30, 1993)

There are 2500 Web Servers and 10,000 Websites
(1994)

NSF Digital Libraries Initiative
(1994)

World Wide Web Worm
(1994)

Internet Traffic Passes 10 Trilliam Bytes per Month
(1994)

HTTP Packets Surpass FTP Traffic
(1994)

NSFNET Reverts to a Research Network
(1994)

Wireless Internet Access
(1994)

Selling Wine without Bottles
(1994)

From Webspace to Cyberspace
(1994)

The First Marketing on the Internet Seminar Series
(1994)

The First Internet Cafe
(March 12 – March 13, 1994)

Yahoo! Founded
(April 1994)

The First Company to Exploit the Economic Potential of the Web
(April 4, 1994)

Commercial Spaming Starts with the "Green Card Spam"
(April 12, 1994)

The First Full Text Web Search Engine
(April 20, 1994)

First Internet Radio Broadcast
(May 3 – May 5, 1994)

The First International Conference on the World Wide Web
(May 25 – May 27, 1994)

HTTP Cookies
(June 1994)

The First Web Analytics Vendor
(June 1994)

The First Commercially Available Web Browser
(October 13, 1994)

The Rolling Stones Present the First "Cyberspace Multicast Concert"
(November 1994)

The Traditional Radio Station Begins Internet Broadcasts
(November 7, 1994)

The First Web Page Tagging System
(1995)

There are Approximately 73,500 Servers; WWW is Generally Equated with the Internet
(1995)

Free Online Classified Advertisements
(March 1995)

The First Wiki
(March 25, 1995)

Apache HTTP Server is Released
(April 1995)

Network-Based Scholarly Publishing
(June 1995)

The Beginning of the "Dot-Com Bubble"
(August 9, 1995)

The First Television Show Broadcast over the Internet
(November 23, 1995)

The Kulturarw3 Project
(1996)

The Internet Archive
(1996)

More Email is Sent than Paper Mail
(1996)

There are 100,000 Websites
(1996)

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
(1996)

The First Access to the Mobile Web
(1996)

A Search Engine Initially Called "BackRub"
(January 1996)

First Recorded Use of the Term, Phishing
(January 2, 1996)

Searchenginewatch.com Begins
(April 1996)

U.S. Call to Arms for the Cyber Wars
(November 1996)

The Internet2 Consortium
(1997)

How Much Information is There?
(1997)

The First Web Analyzer with Drill-Down and Ad-Hoc Analysis
(1997)

The First Museums and the Web Conference
(March 1997)

There are 1,000,000 Websites
(April 1997)

WAP
(June 1997)

The Internet is Entitled to the Full Protection Given to Printed Material
(June 26, 1997)

DNS is Corrupted Through Human Error
(July 1997)

Altavista Claims 20,000,000 Queries Per Day
(November 1997)

W3C Releases XML
(1998)

Voice Over Internet Protocol
(1998)

The Cluetrain Manifesto
(1998)

Long Distance Transmission of One Terabit per Second
(1998)

The First Continuous Live Webcasts
(January 1998)

PageRank is Published on Paper
(January 29, 1998)

A New Kind of National Information Infrastructure
(March 1998)

The Growing Spam Problem
(April 1998)

ICANN is Founded
(September 30, 1998)

Domain Names are Property
(1999)

Bluetooth
(1999)

The First Full Internet Service on Cell Phones
(1999)

Massive Denial-of-Service Attack
(2000)

The Size of the Internet in 2000
(2000)

The Journal of Interactive Advertising
(2000)

Over 10,000,000 Domain Names Have Been Registered
(February 2000)

Climax of the Dot-Com Bubble
(March 10, 2000)

There are 20,000,000 Websites on the Internet
(September 2000)

Safeguarding of Internet Security
(December 28, 2000)

The First 3G Cellular Network
(October 1, 2001)

Size of the Internet in 2002
(2002)

Origins of Cyberspace
(2002)

Online Marketing Optimization
(2002)

Collecting and Preserving the World Wide Web
(February 23, 2003)

Apple Opens the iTunes Store
(April 28, 2003)

Netpreserve.org
(July 2003)

Skype Founded
(August 2003)

Metroblogging
(November 2003)

800,000,000 People are Using the Internet
(2004)

There are 50,000,000 Websites on the Internet
(May 2004)

BitTorrent
(September 22, 2004)

Web 2.0
(October 5 – October 7, 2004)

8,000,000 U.S. Blogs
(November 2004)

Use of Internet in China
(2005)

40,000,000,000 Web Pages
(2005)

From Gutenberg to the Internet
(2005)

"Broadcast Yourself"
(February 2005)

Code 2.2 wiki
(March 2005)

300 Years to Index All the World's Information
(October 8, 2005)

The Amazon Mechanical Turk
(November 2, 2005)

Massively Distributed Collaboration
(November 9, 2005)

The Wayback Machine
(2006)

The Highest Price Paid for a Domain Name
(January 16, 2006)

A Research Library Based on Historical Collections of the Internet Archive
(February 2006)

The "Cyber Storm" War Game
(February 6 – February 10, 2006)

World Wide Web History Center
(March 2006)

"The entire works of humankind, from the beginning of recorded history, in all languages" would amount to 50 petabytes of data.
(May 14, 2006)

Like Teleporting in Star Trek
(June 2006)

More than 100,000,000 Websites
(November 1, 2006)

10X Faster than Any Product on this Planet
(February 2007)

12,000,000 U.S. Blogs
(February 2007)

The iPhone
(June 29, 2007)

Cyber Storm II
(March 10 – March 14, 2008)

21.9% of the World's People Use the Internet
(June 30, 2008)

Over One Trillion Unique URLs
(July 2008)

181,277,835 Active Websites
(September 2008)

The Leading Classified Advertising Service
(September 2008)

The First Android-Powered Phone
(September 23, 2008)

Authors, Publishers and Google Reach "Landmark Settlement"
(October 28, 2008)

An Election Reported Interactively in Real Time
(November 4, 2008)

Change.gov
(November 5, 2008)

Over 5,000,000 Articles Posted on the HighWire Press e-Publishing Platform.
(December 2, 2008)

China Becomes the Top User of the Internet
(January 14, 2009)

27-55% of All Internet Traffic
(February 2009)

"Computers vs. Brains"
(April 1, 2009)

Australia to Build National Fiber Optic 100 Megabit Network
(April 7, 2009)

"Green Dam Youth Escort"
(May 19, 2009)

Reinventing Email and Internet Communication
(May 28, 2009)

The WARC Format as an International File Preservation Standard
(June 1, 2009)

Piracy of Internet Filtering Software?
(June 13, 2009)

1.7 Billion Internet Users
(September 30, 2009)

The Largest Study of Global Internet Traffic Since the Beginning of the Commercial Internet
(October 19, 2009)

Google Represents 6% of All Internet Traffic
(October 19, 2009)

ICANN Will Allow Web Addresses in Non-Latin Alphabets
(October 30, 2009)

Google Announces Real-Time Search
(December 2009)

Google's Computers in China Come Under Attack, Initiating a Review of the Company's Operations in China
(January 12, 2010)

Exploit Code for Attacks on Google Released on the Internet
(January 15, 2010)

Facebook has 400,000,000 Users
(February 4, 2010)

Google Pulls its Search Engine Out of Mainland China
(March 22, 2010)

The Library of Congress to Preserve All "Tweets"
(April 14, 2010)

The First Internet Addresses in Non-Latin Characters
(May 6, 2010)

Cell Phones Are Now Used More for Data than Speech
(May 13, 2010)

Data on Mobile Networks is Doubling Each Year
(August 1, 2010)