Milestones in the Development of the Internet and Its Significance for Education

(Source: PBS Net Timeline and Hobbes Internet timeline)

The Internet began as an experiment funded by the United States Department of Defense to promote networking research. Called the ARPANET, it originally connected the Stanford Research Institute, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. Scientists immediately found the connectivity extremely useful in collaborating via email, and other universities and government research centers were soon connected. At this stage in the Internet's development, access was only available for private citizens as students or faculty at these schools.

Before access to the Internet became widely available, computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy, and America Online provided online content and connectivity. These were primarily "character" based systems that allowed people to connect via modems and phone lines in order to share files and exchange messages, participate in chat rooms and forums on a wide variety of subjects. As technology permitted, the character-based interfaces of personal computer operating systems evolved into GUI and WYSIWYG - the Graphical User Interface and What You See Is What You Get. At the same time, the Internet was gathering momentum. When the two technologies collided with the introduction of the World Wide Web and graphical web browsers, the Internet exploded in popularity. Most of the content and functionality of the online services and BBS's quickly moved to the Internet.

1962 - 1969

The Internet is first conceived in the early '60s. Under the leadership of the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), it grows from a paper architecture into a small network (ARPANET) intended to promote the sharing of super-computers amongst researchers in the United States.

1962 - The RAND Corporation begins research into robust, distributed communication networks for military command and control.

1963 - Beatles play for the Queen of England

1964 - 'Dr Strangelove' portrays nuclear holocaust which new network must survive

1965 - The DOD's Advanced Research Project Association begins work on 'ARPANET'

1965 - ARPA sponsors research into a "cooperative network of time-sharing computers."

1966 - US Surveyor probe lands safely on moon

1967 - First ARPANET papers presented at Association for Computing Machinery Symposium

1967 - Delegates at a symposium for the Association for Computing Machinery in Gatlingberg, TN discuss the first plans for the ARPANET.

1968 - First generation of networking hardware and software designed

1969 - Defense Department commissions ARPANET to promote networking research. First hosts of the ARPANET installed connect Stanford Research Institute, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. CompuServe time-sharing service is founded.

1970 - ALOHANET developed at the University of Hawaii

1970 - 1973

The ARPANET is a success from the very beginning. Although originally designed to allow scientists to share data and access remote computers, email quickly becomes the most popular application. The ARPANET becomes a high-speed digital post office as people use it to collaborate on research projects and discuss topics of various interests.

1971 - ARPANET now connects 23 universities and government research center hosts in the United States.

1972 - The InterNetworking Working Group becomes the first of several standards-setting entities to govern the growing network. Vinton Cerf is elected the first chairman of the INWG, and later becomes known as a "Father of the Internet."

1973 - ARPANET establishes international connections to University College in London, England and the Royal Radar Establishment in Norway.

1974 - 1981

The general public gets its first vague hint of how networked computers can be used in daily life as the commercial version of the ARPANET goes online. The ARPANET starts to move away from its military/research roots.

1975 - The MITS Altair 8800 is hailed as the first "personal" computer. Paul Allen and Bill Gates develop BASIC for the 8800 and Microsoft is born.

1976 - Queen Elizabeth sends the first royal email message. The Apple I is brought into a school for the first time by Liza Loop at the LO*OP Center. (Her Open Portal Schools article, written in 1986 and updated in 1998 is an eye-opener.)

1977 - Apple introduces the Apple with 16K of RAM .

1979 - The first USENET newsgroups are established and people around the world are soon discussing the thousands subjects electronically. CompuServe becomes the first service to offer electronic mail capabilities to personal computer users.

1980 - IBM asks Microsoft to develop BASIC for its personal computer to be introduced next year. CompuServe is the first online service to offer real-time chat online with its CB Simulator.

1981 - The ARPANET grows to 213 hosts with a new host added approximately every 20 days. NSF provides seed money for CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) to connect U.S. computer science departments. The IBM PC is introduced in August

1982 - The term "Internet" is coined.

1982 - 1987

Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf are key members of a team which creates TCP/IP, the common language of all Internet computers. For the first time the loose collection of networks which made up the ARPANET is seen as an "internet", and the Internet as we know it today is born.

The mid-80s marks a boom in the personal computer and super-minicomputer industries. The combination of inexpensive desktop machines and powerful, network-ready servers allows many companies to join the Internet for the first time. Corporations begin to use the Internet to communicate with each other and with their customers.

1984 - The Apple Macintosh is introduced with a GUI - graphical user interface.

1985 - Apple launches ACOT - Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow. Microsoft Windows 1.0 ships in November. America Online is launched under original name, Quantum Computer Services, who's first online service is "Q-Link."

1987 - Internet hosts grow to more than 10,000.

1988 - Internet worm unleashed

1988 - 1990

By 1988 the Internet is an essential tool for communications, however it also begins to create concerns about privacy and security in the digital world. New words, such as "hacker," "cracker" and" electronic break-in", are created.

These new worries are dramatically demonstrated on Nov. 1, 1988 when a malicious program called the "Internet Worm" temporarily disables approximately 6,000 of the 60,000 Internet hosts.

1988 - The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is formed to address security concerns raised by the Worm.

1989 - Internet hosts exceed 100,000. "America Online" service is launched for Macintosh and Apple II.

1990 - A happy victim of its own unplanned, unexpected success, the ARPANET is decommissioned, leaving only the vast network-of-networks called the Internet. The number of hosts exceeds 300,000.

1991 - The World Wide Web is born!

1991 - 1993

Corporations wishing to use the Internet face a serious problem: commercial network traffic is banned from the National Science Foundation's NSFNET, the backbone of the Internet. In 1991 the NSF lifts the restriction on commercial use, clearing the way for the age of electronic commerce.

At the University of Minnesota, a team led by computer programmer Mark MaCahill releases "gopher," the first point-and-click way of navigating the files of the Internet in 1991. Originally designed to ease campus communications, gopher is freely distributed on the Internet. MaCahill calls it "the first Internet application my mom can use." 1991 is also the year in which Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN in Switzerland, posts the first computer code of the World Wide Web in a relatively innocuous newsgroup, "alt.hypertext." The ability to combine words, pictures, and sounds on Web pages excites many computer programmers who see the potential for publishing information on the Internet in a way that can be as easy as using a word processor.

Marc Andreesen and a group of student programmers at NCSA (the National Center for Supercomputing Applications located on the campus of University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) will eventually develop a graphical browser for the World Wide Web called Mosaic.

1991 - Commercial restriction on Internet use is lifted. Point-and-click navigation of files on the Internet is born in "gopher." Also, World Wide Web software released by CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. High Performance Computing Act, authored by then-Senator Gore, is signed into law. Quantum Computer Services changes name to America Online, Inc.

1992 - Internet hosts exceeded 1,000,000.. First audio and video broadcasts take place.

1993 - Mosaic, the first graphics-based Web browser developed at the NSF-funded National Center for Supercomputing Applications, is released. President Clinton and Vice President Gore get e-mail addresses. Traffic on the World Wide Web explodes. The White House commits to connecting schools via the Internet in Technology for America's Economic Growth: A New Direction to Build Economic Strength. The symposium "Reinventing Schools: The Technology Is Now" discusses integrating technology and the Internet into new instructional models for the classroom. Windows version of America Online launched.

1994 - Netscape Communications Corp. is formed. White House goes on-line with "Welcome to the White House." The Improving America's Schools Act of 1994 calls for the creation of a national education technology plan. According to the National Center for Education Statistics 35% percent of public elementary and secondary schools, and 3% of instructional rooms, have access to the Internet.

1995 - The Web now comprises most of Internet traffic. The Internet taken over by commercial sector as NSFNET reverts back to its research origins. U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement's Technology Innovation Challenge Grant program begins.

1996 - As the Internet celebrates its 25th anniversary, the military strategies that influenced its birth become historical footnotes. Internet hosts in the network-of-networks near the 10 million mark, and approximately 40 million users in almost 150 countries are online. E-commerce takes off as more than $1 billion per year changes hands online. Internet related stocks begin to soar. President Clinton and Vice President Gore announce Next Generation Internet initiative. Telecommunications Act of 1996 signed into law, which among other things, established the "E-Rate" funding of Internet connectivity for schools and libraries. In February, the White House announced the Technology Literacy Challenge. To support the initiative, in June the Department of educaton released the nation’s first national educational technology plan, Getting America’s Students Ready for the 21st Century: Meeting the Technology Literacy Challenge.

Users in almost 150 countries around the world are now connected to the Internet. The number of computer hosts approaches 10 million.

Within 30 years, the Internet has grown from a Cold War concept for controlling the tattered remains of a post-nuclear society to the Information Superhighway. Just as the railroads of the 19th century enabled the Machine Age, and revolutionized the society of the time, the Internet takes us into the Information Age, and profoundly affects the world in which we live.

The Age of the Internet has arrived.

1997 - The FCC begins implementing the E-rate and rules unanimously to provide all K-12 schools and public libraries up to $2.25 billion a year in discounts for telecommunication services ranging from 20%-to-90% on a sliding-scale formula.

1998 - Internet hosts number almost 37 million and web-sites over 4 million. The first round of the E-Rate applications receive more than 30,000 applications requesting total discounts worth $2.02 billion.

1999 - Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-1999 According to the National Center for Education Statistics 95% percent of public elementary and secondary schools, and 63% of instructional rooms, have access to the Internet. In the fall, the U.S. Department of Education begins a year-long review of the national educational technology plan, Getting America’s Students Ready for the 21st Century: Meeting the Technology Literacy Challenge from 1996. Several white papers are commissioned and the Forum on Technology in Education: Envisioning the Future is held in December.