A timeline of the history of the Internet can stretch back as far as the 19th century, as early electrical telecommunications like the telegraph laid the conceptual groundwork for global networking. This timeline begins in 1960, and lists key events including the emergence of novel ideas, the first implementation of new technologies, and the introduction of new products and services that were significant at that point in time in the history of the Internet. These events led to the Internet as we know it today.
Early research and development (1960-1981) 1960–1964: J. C. R. Licklider has ideas about human-computer interaction and networking; becomes the director of Project MAC work on time-sharing. 1960–1964: Distributed networking concepts for digital voice communication developed by Paul Baran at RAND. 1965–1967: Packet switching concepts for data communication in high-speed computer networks conceived by Donald Davies. 1967 (1967): ARPANET planning begins to enable resource sharing over a wide area network. 1967 (1967): Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. 1969 (1969): NPL network followed by the ARPANET carry their first packets. 1970 (1970): Network Information Center (NIC). 1971 (1971): Tymnet switched-circuit network. 1972 (1972): Merit Network, founded in 1966, begins operation of a packet-switched network. 1972 (1972): Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) established. 1973 (1973): CYCLADES network demonstrated by Louis Pouzin and Hubert Zimmerman. 1973 (1973): PARC Universal Packet development begins 1974 (1974): Transmission Control Program specification published 1975 (1975): Telenet commercial packet-switched network 1976 (1976): X.25 protocol, developed by Rémi Després and others, is approved by the CCITT and deployed on public data networks 1978 (1978): Minitel introduced 1979 (1979): Internet Activities Board (IAB) 1980 (1980): USENET news using UUCP 1980 (1980): Ethernet standard introduced 1981 (1981): BITNET established
Merging the networks and creating the Internet (1981-1994) 1981 (1981): Computer Science Network (CSNET) 1982 (1982): TCP/IP protocol suite formalized 1982 (1982): Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) 1983 (1983): Domain Name System (DNS) 1983 (1983): MILNET split off from ARPANET 1984 (1984): OSI Reference Model released. 1984: JANET network online. 1985 (1985): First .COM domain name registered 1986 (1986): NSFNET with 56 kbit/s links 1986 (1986): Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 1987 (1987): UUNET founded 1988 (1988): NSFNET upgraded to 1.5 Mbit/s (T1) 1988 (1988): Morris worm 1988 (1988): Complete Internet protocol suite 1989 (1989): Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) 1989 (1989): PSINet founded, allows commercial traffic 1989 (1989): Federal Internet Exchange (FIX) 1990 (1990): GOSIP (without TCP/IP) 1990 (1990): ARPANET decommissioned 1990 (1990): Advanced Network and Services (ANS) 1990 (1990): UUNET/Alternet allows commercial traffic 1990 (1990): Archie search engine 1991 (1991): Wide area information server (WAIS) 1991 (1991): Gopher 1991 (1991): Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) 1991 (1991): ANS CO+RE allows commercial traffic 1991 (1991): World Wide Web (WWW) 1992 (1992): NSFNET upgraded to 45 Mbit/s (T3) 1992 (1992): Internet Society (ISOC) established 1993 (1993): Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) 1993 (1993): InterNIC established 1993 (1993): AOL added USENET access 1993 (1993): Mosaic web browser released 1994 (1994): Full text web search engines 1994 (1994): North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) established
Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to the modern Internet (1995-present) 1995 (1995): New Internet architecture with commercial ISPs connected at NAPs 1995 (1995): NSFNET decommissioned 1995 (1995): GOSIP updated to allow TCP/IP 1995 (1995): very high-speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) 1995 (1995): IPv6 proposed 1996 (1996): AOL changes pricing model from hourly to monthly 1998 (1998): Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 1999 (1999): IEEE 802.11b wireless networking 1999 (1999): Internet2/Abilene Network 1999 (1999): vBNS+ allows broader access 2000 (2000): Dot-com bubble bursts 2001 (2001): New top-level domain names activated 2001 (2001): Code Red I, Code Red II, and Nimda worms 2003 (2003): UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) phase I 2003 (2003): National LambdaRail founded 2004 (2004): UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) 2005 (2005): UN WSIS phase II 2006 (2006): First meeting of the Internet Governance Forum 2010 (2010): First internationalized country code top-level domains registered 2012 (2012): ICANN begins accepting applications for new generic top-level domain names 2013 (2013): Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation 2014 (2014): NetMundial international Internet governance proposal 2016 (2016): ICANN contract with U.S. Dept. of Commerce ends, IANA oversight passes to the global Internet community on October 1st 2018 (2018): The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect, establishing stringent new global data privacy standards 2020 (2020): Global internet traffic experiences a massive surge due to the COVID-19 pandemic, heavily accelerating remote work and digital communication platforms
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