History of Internet

The Internet (as we know it) first got it's start back in 1972, but you have to go back even farther than that... In 1957, Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the need for, and started the Advanced Research Projects Agency (or ARPA) after the Soviet's launched their Sputnik satellite (the first successful man-made satellite).

ARPA, a project of the US Department of Defense, was originally created to develop a non-centralized network that would be able to withstand particular outages (i.e. Nuclear War) and still function when parts of network were not working correctly (or destroyed). This specific project of ARPA was called the ARPAnet.

In 1962, a man by the name of Dr. J.C.R. Licklider was chosen to head ARPA's research. Licklider, the visionary he was, saw that the best way to improve the technology was to move the organization out of private ownership and into the universities. ARPAnet had it's first public demonstration in 1972. After which, the Universities and public researchers greatly contributed to it and other networks.

One of the other networks that later became part of the Internet was called NFSnet, named after the National Science Foundation that created it. It was the brainchild of academic researchers all over the US. In 1985, the NFSnet became the backbone of the internet, transmitting data across the US. This opened the doors for hundreds of smaller, regional networks to join up with it, and form the huge network we have today.

In 1989, ARPAnet was shut down due to lack of military interest and funding.

During the early 1990's, the Internet experienced explosive growth as commercial networks started giving people access to the internet, even indirectly. America On-Line is a good example of one of these networks. AOL customers couldn't access the Internet until about 1991.

The most growth was experienced towards the end of 1994. At that time, it was estimated that the Internet connected some 2 million computers, and served some 23 million users in over 100 countries. And the population doubled every year. It was estimated that by the year 2000, almost everyone in the world would have e-mail access.