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1957 USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite. In response, US forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the following year, within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military (:amk:)

1961 Leonard Kleinrock, MIT: "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets" (May 31) First paper on packet-switching (PS) theory 1962 J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark, MIT: "On-Line Man Computer Communication" (August) Galactic Network concept encompassing distributed social interactions 1964 Paul Baran, RAND: "On Distributed Communications Networks"

Packet-switching networks; no single outage point 1965 ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of time-sharing computers"

TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and AN/FSQ-32 at System Development Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are directly linked (without packet switches) via a dedicated 1200bps phone line; Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computer at ARPA later added to form "The Experimental Network" 1966 Lawrence G. Roberts, MIT: "Towards a Cooperative Network of Time-Shared Computers" (October) First ARPANET plan 1967 ARPANET design discussions held by Larry Roberts at ARPA IPTO PI meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan (April) ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in Gatlinburg, Tennessee (October)

First design paper on ARPANET published by Larry Roberts: "Multiple Computer Networks and Intercomputer Communication

First meeting of the three independent packet network teams (RAND, NPL, ARPA) National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops NPL Data Network under Donald Watts Davies who coins the term packet. The NPL network, an experiment in packet-switching, used 768kbps lines 1968 PS-network presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) Request for quotation for ARPANET (29 Jul) sent out in August; responses received in September University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) awarded Network Measurement Center contract in October Network Working Group (NWG), headed by Steve Crocker, loosely organized to develop host level protocols for communication over the ARPANET. (:vgc:) Tymnet built as part of Tymshare service (:vgc:) 1969 Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) awarded Packet Switch contract to build Interface Message Processors (IMPs) in January US Senator Edward Kennedy sends a congratulatory telegram to BBN for its million-dollar ARPA contract to build the "Interfaith" Message Processor, and thanking them for their ecumenical efforts ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking Nodes are stood up as BBN builds each IMP [Honeywell DDP-516 mini computer with 12K of memory]; AT&T provides lines bundled to 50kbps Node 1: UCLA (30 August, hooked up 2 September) Function: Network Measurement Center

Network Measurement Center System,OS: SDS SIGMA 7, SEX

SDS SIGMA 7, SEX Diagram of the first host to IMP connection Node 2: Stanford Research Institute (SRI) (1 October) Network Information Center (NIC)

SDS940/Genie

Doug Engelbart's project on "Augmentation of Human Intellect" Node 3: University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) (1 November) Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics

IBM 360/75, OS/MVT Node 4: University of Utah (December) Graphics

DEC PDP-10, Tenex Diagram of the 4-node ARPAnet First Request for Comment (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker (7 April) RFC 4: Network Timetable First packets sent by Charley Kline at UCLA as he tried logging into SRI. The first attempt resulted in the system crashing as the letter G of LOGIN was entered. (October 29) [ Log entry ] Univ of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State Univ establish X.25-based Merit network for students, faculty, alumni (:sw1:)

1970 First publication of the original ARPANET Host-Host protocol: C.S. Carr, S. Crocker, V.G. Cerf, "HOST-HOST Communication Protocol in the ARPA Network," in AFIPS Proceedings of SJCC (:vgc:) First report on ARPANET at AFIPS: "Computer Network Development to Achieve Resource Sharing" (March) ALOHAnet, the first packet radio network, developed by Norman Abramson, Univ of Hawaii, becomes operational (July) (:sk2:) connected to the ARPANET in 1972 ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP), first host-to-host protocol First cross-country link installed by AT&T between UCLA and BBN at 56kbps. This line is later replaced by another between BBN and RAND. A second line is added between MIT and Utah 1971 15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, Univ of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND, SDC, Harvard, Lincoln Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames BBN starts building IMPs using the cheaper Honeywell 316. IMPs however are limited to 4 host connections, and so BBN develops a terminal IMP (TIP) that supports up to 64 terminals (September) Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents email program to send messages across a distributed network. The original program was derived from two others: an intra-machine email program (SENDMSG) and an experimental file transfer program (CPYNET) (:amk:irh:) Project Gutenberg is started by Michael Hart with the purpose of making copyright-free works, including books, electronically available. The first text is the US Declaration of Independence (:dhr,msh:) 1972 Ray Tomlinson (BBN) modifies email program for ARPANET where it becomes a quick hit. The @ sign was chosen from the punctuation keys on Tomlinson's Model 33 Teletype for its "at" meaning (March) Larry Roberts writes first email management program (RD) to list, selectively read, file, forward, and respond to messages (July) International Conference on Computer Communications (ICCC) at the Washington D.C. Hilton with demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal Interface Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn. (October) First computer-to-computer chat takes place at UCLA, and is repeated during ICCC, as psychotic PARRY (at Stanford) discusses its problems with the Doctor (at BBN). International Network Working Group (INWG) formed in October as a result of a meeting at ICCC identifying the need for a combined effort in advancing networking technologies. Vint Cerf appointed first Chair. By 1974, INWG became IFIP WG 6.1 (:vgc:) Louis Pouzin leads the French effort to build its own ARPANET - CYCLADES RFC 318: Telnet specification 1973 First international connections to the ARPANET: University College of London (England) via NORSAR (Norway) Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet. The concept was tested on Xerox PARC's Alto computers, and the first Ethernet network called the Alto Aloha System (May) (:amk:) Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts Internetting research program at ARPA. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March on back of envelope in a San Francisco hotel lobby (:vgc:) Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at Univ of Sussex, Brighton, UK (:vgc:) RFC 454: File Transfer specification Network Voice Protocol (NVP) specification (RFC 741) and implementation enabling conference calls over ARPAnet. (:bb1:) SRI (NIC) begins publishing ARPANET News in March; number of ARPANET users estimated at 2,000 ARPA study shows email composing 75% of all ARPANET traffic Christmas Day Lockup - Harvard IMP hardware problem leads it to broadcast zero-length hops to any ARPANET destination, causing all other IMPs to send their traffic to Harvard (25 December) RFC 527: ARPAWOCKY RFC 602: The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney with Care 1974 Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication" which specified in detail the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP). [IEEE Trans Comm] (:amk:) BBN opens Telenet, the first public packet data service (a commercial version of ARPANET) (:sk2:) 1975 Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now DISA) First ARPANET mailing list, MsgGroup, is created by Steve Walker. Einar Stefferud soon took over as moderator as the list was not automated at first. A science fiction list, SF-Lovers, was to become the most popular unofficial list in the early days John Vittal develops MSG, the first all-inclusive email program providing replying, forwarding, and filing capabilities. Satellite links cross two oceans (to Hawaii and UK) as the first TCP tests are run over them by Stanford, BBN, and UCL "Jargon File", by Raphael Finkel at SAIL, first released (:esr:) Shockwave Rider by John Brunner (:pds:) 1976 Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom sends out an email on 26 March from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later. Multiprocessing Pluribus IMPs are deployed 1977 THEORYNET created by Larry Landweber at Univ of Wisconsin providing electronic mail to over 100 researchers in computer science (using a locally developed email system over TELENET) RFC 733: Mail specification Tymshare spins out Tymnet under pressure from TELENET. Both go on to develop X.25 protocol standard for virtual circuit style packet switching (:vgc:) First demonstration of ARPANET/SF Bay Packet Radio Net/Atlantic SATNET operation of Internet protocols with BBN-supplied gateways in July (:vgc:) 1978 TCP split into TCP and IP (March) Possibly the first commercial spam message is sent on 1 May by a DEC marketer advertising an upcoming presentation of its new DECSYSTEM-20 computers RFC 748: TELNET RANDOMLY-LOSE Option 1979 Meeting between Univ of Wisconsin, DARPA, National Science Foundation (NSF), and computer scientists from many universities to establish a Computer Science Department research computer network (organized by Larry Landweber). USENET established using UUCP between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin. All original groups were under NET.* hierarchy. First MUD, MUD1, by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw at U of Essex ARPA establishes the Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB) Packet Radio Network (PRNET) experiment starts with DARPA funding. Most communications take place between mobile vans. ARPANET connection via SRI. On April 12, Kevin MacKenzie emails the MsgGroup a suggestion of adding some emotion back into the dry text medium of email, such as -) for indicating a sentence was tongue-in-cheek. Though flamed by many at the time, emoticons became widely used after Scott Fahlman suggested the use of :-) and :-( in a CMU BBS on 19 September 1982

1980 ARPANET grinds to a complete halt on 27 October because of an accidentally-propagated status-message virus First C/30-based IMP at BBN 1981 BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork" Started as a cooperative network at the City University of New York, with the first connection to Yale (:feg:)

Original acronym stood for 'There' instead of 'Time' in reference to the free NJE protocols provided with the IBM systems

Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute information, as well as file transfers CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) built by a collaboration of computer scientists and Univ of Delaware, Purdue Univ, Univ of Wisconsin, RAND Corporation and BBN through seed money granted by NSF to provide networking services (especially email) to university scientists with no access to ARPANET. CSNET later becomes known as the Computer and Science Network. (:amk,lhl:) C/30 IMPs predominate the network; first C/30 TIP at SAC Minitel (Teletel) is deployed across France by France Telecom. True Names by Vernor Vinge (:pds:) RFC 801: NCP/TCP Transition Plan 1982 Norway leaves network to become an Internet connection via TCP/IP over SATNET; UCL does the same DCA and ARPA establish the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, for ARPANET. (:vgc:) This leads to one of the first definitions of an "internet" as a connected set of networks, specifically those using TCP/IP, and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets.

DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD (:vgc:) EUnet (European UNIX Network) is created by EUUG to provide email and USENET services. (:glg:) original connections between the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and UK Exterior Gateway Protocol (RFC 827) specification. EGP is used for gateways between networks. 1983 Name server developed at Univ of Wisconsin, no longer requiring users to know the exact path to other systems Cutover from NCP to TCP/IP (1 January) No more Honeywell or Pluribus IMPs; TIPs replaced by TACs (terminal access controller) Stuttgart and Korea get connected Movement Information Net (MINET) started early in the year in Europe, connected to Internet in Sept CSNET / ARPANET gateway put in place ARPANET split into ARPANET and MILNET; the latter became integrated with the Defense Data Network created the previous year. 68 of the 113 existing nodes went to MILNET Desktop workstations come into being, many with Berkeley UNIX (4.2 BSD) which includes IP networking software (:mpc:) Networking needs switch from having a single, large time sharing computer connected to the Internet at each site, to instead connecting entire local networks Internet Activities Board (IAB) established, replacing ICCB EARN (European Academic and Research Network) established. Very similar to the way BITNET works with a gateway funded by IBM-Europe FidoNet developed by Tom Jennings 1984 Domain Name System (DNS) introduced Number of hosts breaks 1,000 JUNET (Japan Unix Network) established using UUCP JANET (Joint Academic Network) established in the UK using the Coloured Book protocols; previously SERCnet Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET (mod.*) Neuromancer by William Gibson Canada begins a one-year effort to network its universities. The NetNorth Network is connected to BITNET in Ithaca from Toronto (:kf1:) Kremvax message announcing USSR connectivity to USENET 1985 Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL) started Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at USC is given responsibility for DNS root management by DCA, and SRI for DNS NIC registrations Symbolics.com is assigned on 15 March to become the first registered domain. Other firsts: cmu.edu, purdue.edu, rice.edu, berkeley.edu, ucla.edu, rutgers.edu, bbn.com (24 Apr); mit.edu (23 May); think.com (24 may); css.gov (June); mitre.org, .uk (July) 100 years to the day of the last spike being driven on the cross-Canada railroad, the last Canadian university is connected to NetNorth in a one year effort to have coast-to-coast connectivity. (:kf1:) RFC 968: 'Twas the Night Before Start-up 1986 NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps) NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide high-computing power for all (JVNC@Princeton, PSC@Pittsburgh, SDSC@UCSD, NCSA@UIUC, Theory Center@Cornell).

This allows an explosion of connections, especially from universities. NSF-funded SDSCNET, JVNCNET, SURANET, and NYSERNET operational (:sw1:) Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) comes into existence under the IAB. First IETF meeting held in January at Linkabit in San Diego The first Freenet (Cleveland) comes on-line 16 July under the auspices of the Society for Public Access Computing (SoPAC). Later Freenet program management assumed by the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) in 1989 (:sk2,rab:) Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) designed to enhance Usenet news performance over TCP/IP. Mail Exchanger (MX) records developed by Craig Partridge allow non-IP network hosts to have domain addresses. The first in a series of congestion collapses begin occurring in October. (:jtl:) The great USENET name change; moderated newsgroups changed in 1987. BARRNET (Bay Area Regional Research Network) established using high speed links. Operational in 1987. New England gets cut off from the Net as AT&T suffers a fiber optics cable break between Newark/NJ and White Plains/NY. Yes, all seven New England ARPANET trunk lines were in the one severed cable. Outage took place between 1:11 and 12:11 EST on 12 December .fi is registered by members of the Finnish Unix User Group (FUUG) in Tampere (12 Dec) 1987 NSF signs a cooperative agreement to manage the NSFNET backbone with Merit Network, Inc. (IBM and MCI involvement was through an agreement with Merit). Merit, IBM, and MCI later founded ANS. UUNET is founded with Usenix funds to provide commercial UUCP and Usenet access. Originally an experiment by Rick Adams and Mike O'Dell First TCP/IP Interoperability Conference (March), name changed in 1988 to INTEROP Email link established between Germany and China using CSNET protocols, with the first message from China sent on 20 September. (:wz1:) The concept and plan for a national US research and education network is proposed by Gordon Bell et al in a report to the Office of Science and Technology, written in response to a congressional request by Al Gore. (Nov) It would take four years until the establishment of this network by Congress (:gb1:) 1000th RFC: "Request For Comments reference guide" Number of hosts breaks 10,000 Number of BITNET hosts breaks 1,000 1988 2 November - Internet worm burrows through the Net, affecting ~6,000 of the 60,000 hosts on the Internet (:ph1:) CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) formed by DARPA in response to the needs exhibited during the Morris worm incident. The worm is the only advisory issued this year. DoD chooses to adopt OSI and sees use of TCP/IP as an interim. US Government OSI Profile (GOSIP) defines the set of protocols to be supported by Government purchased products (:gck:) Los Nettos network created with no federal funding, instead supported by regional members (founding: Caltech, TIS, UCLA, USC, ISI). NSFNET backbone upgraded to T1 (1.544Mbps) CERFnet (California Education and Research Federation network) founded by Susan Estrada. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) established in December with Jon Postel as its Director. Postel was also the RFC Editor and US Domain registrar for many years. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) developed by Jarkko Oikarinen (:zby:) First Canadian regionals join NSFNET: ONet via Cornell, RISQ via Princeton, BCnet via Univ of Washington (:ec1:) FidoNet gets connected to the Net, enabling the exchange of email and news (:tp1:) The first multicast tunnel is established between Stanford and BBN in the Summer of 1988. Countries connecting to NSFNET: Canada (CA), Denmark (DK), France (FR), Iceland (IS), Norway (NO), Sweden (SE) 1989 Number of hosts breaks 100,000 RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) formed (by European service providers) to ensure the necessary administrative and technical coordination to allow the operation of the pan-European IP Network. (:glg:) First relays between a commercial electronic mail carrier and the Internet: MCI Mail through the Corporation for the National Research Initiative (CNRI), and CompuServe through Ohio State Univ (:jg1,ph1:) Corporation for Research and Education Networking (CREN) is formed by merging CSNET into BITNET (August) AARNET - Australian Academic Research Network - set up by AVCC and CSIRO; introduced into service the following year (:gmc:) First link between Australia and NSFNET via Hawaii on 23 June. Australia had been limited to USENET access since the early 1980s Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll tells the real-life tale of a German cracker group who infiltrated numerous US facilities UCLA sponsors the Act One symposium to celebrate ARPANET's 20th anniversary and its decommissioning (August) RFC 1121: Act One - The Poems RFC 1097: TELNET SUBLIMINAL-MESSAGE Option Countries connecting to NSFNET: Australia (AU), Germany (DE), Israel (IL), Italy (IT), Japan (JP), Mexico (MX), Netherlands (NL), New Zealand (NZ), Puerto Rico (PR), United Kingdom (UK)

If you enjoy the Timeline or make use of it in some way, please let me know.

Early Internet growth:

Date Hosts | Date Hosts Networks Domains ----- --------- + ----- --------- -------- --------- 12/69 4 | 07/89 130,000 650 3,900 06/70 9 | 10/89 159,000 837 10/70 11 | 10/90 313,000 2,063 9,300 12/70 13 | 01/91 376,000 2,338 04/71 23 | 07/91 535,000 3,086 16,000 10/72 31 | 10/91 617,000 3,556 18,000 01/73 35 | 01/92 727,000 4,526 06/74 62 | 04/92 890,000 5,291 20,000 03/77 111 | 07/92 992,000 6,569 16,300 12/79 188 | 10/92 1,136,000 7,505 18,100 08/81 213 | 01/93 1,313,000 8,258 21,000 05/82 235 | 04/93 1,486,000 9,722 22,000 08/83 562 | 07/93 1,776,000 13,767 26,000 10/84 1,024 | 10/93 2,056,000 16,533 28,000 10/85 1,961 | 01/94 2,217,000 20,539 30,000 02/86 2,308 | 07/94 3,212,000 25,210 46,000 11/86 5,089 | 10/94 3,864,000 37,022 56,000 12/87 28,174 | 01/95 4,852,000 39,410 71,000 07/88 33,000 | 07/95 6,642,000 61,538 120,000 10/88 56,000 | 01/96 9,472,000 93,671 240,000 01/89 80,000 | 07/96 12,881,000 134,365 488,000 | 01/97 16,146,000 828,000 | 07/97 19,540,000 1,301,000 Hosts = a computer system with registered ip address (an A record) Networks = registered class A/B/C addresses Domains = registered domain name (with name server record)

Figure: Internet Domains (1989-1997) [see below for 2000-]

Figure: Internet Networks



____# Countries____ ____# Countries____ Date I B U F O Date I B U F O ----- --- --- --- --- --- ----- --- --- --- --- --- 09/91 31 47 79 49 02/94 62 51 125 88 31 12/91 33 46 78 53 07/94 75 52 129 89 31 02/92 38 46 92 63 11/94 81 51 133 95 -- 04/92 40 47 90 66 25 02/95 86 48 141 98 -- 08/92 49 46 89 67 26 06/95 96 47 144 99 -- 01/93 50 50 101 72 31 06/96 134 -- 146 108 -- 04/93 56 51 107 79 31 07/97 171 -- 147 108 -- 08/93 59 51 117 84 31

Figure: Worldwide Networks Growth



Domain Name Registrations:

Figure: Domain Name Registrations (2000-)



Figure: Internet Hosts



click here for a chart showing the logarithmic growth of the Internet

Figure: WWW Growth



click here for a chart showing the logarithmic growth of the Web

Sites = Number of web servers (one host may have multiple sites by using different domains or port numbers) Notes on causes of signifant increases/drops: - Feb'09 increase likely due to 20M new Chinese sites served by qq.com - Aug'09 drop likely due to domain expiry at The Planet, including 5M .pl domains served from one IP alleged to be a linkfarm - Jan'10 drop likely due to qq.com blogs no longer being publically listed - Jul-Aug'12 drop caused by removal of several wildcard hostnames with similar content - Sep'12 drop caused by large network of linkfarmed domains disappearing from under the .com TLD - Nov'14-Jan'15 drop largely caused by parked websites, with half attributed to a single IP ceasing to host them

Facebook Growth:

Figure: Facebook Accounts / Monthly Active Users (MAUs)



Date Sites ~MB ~Posts Groups | Date Sites ~MB ~Posts Groups ---- ----- --- ------ ------ + ---- ------- --- ------ ------ 1979 3 2 3 | 1987 5,200 2 957 259 1980 15 10 | 1988 7,800 4 1933 381 1981 150 0.05 20 | 1990 33,000 10 4,500 1,300 1982 400 35 | 1991 40,000 25 10,000 1,851 1983 600 120 | 1992 63,000 42 17,556 4,302 1984 900 225 | 1993 110,000 70 32,325 8,279 1985 1,300 1.0 375 | 1994 180,000 157 72,755 10,696 1986 2,200 2.0 946 241 | 1995 330,000 586 131,614 ~ approximate: MB - megabytes per day, Posts - articles per day

Security (CERT/US-CERT) Stats:

Date Incidents Advisories Vulnerabilities Tech Alerts ---- --------- ---------- --------------- ----------- 1988 6 1 1989 132 7 1990 252 12 1991 406 23 1992 773 21 1993 1,334 19 1994 2,340 15 1995 2,412 18 171 1996 2,573 27 345 1997 2,134 28 311 1998 3,734 13 262 1999 9,859 17 417 2000 21,756 22 774 2001 52,658 37 2,437 2002 82,094 37 4,129 2003 137,529 28 3,784 2004 3,780 27 2005 5,990 22 2006 8,064 39 2007 7,236 42 2008Q1-3 6,058 29