MILESTONES

Starting Point

I'd say the web actually started back in the mid to late 60's. In response to the USSR launching Sputnik, the U.S. government had formed the Advanced Research Projects Agency, (ARPA), for the advancement of science and technology for military usage. In 1969 ARPANET was commisioned by the Department Of Defense to conduct research into networking. In that same year three computers were linked together at UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, and University of Utah. The following is a description of what took place during that experiment.

• "We set up a telephone connection between us and the guys at SRI...," Kleinrock ... said in an interview: "We typed the L and we asked on the phone,
• "Do you see the L?"
• "Yes, we see the L," came the response.
• "We typed the O, and we asked, "Do you see the O."
• "Yes, we see the O."
• "Then we typed the G, and the system crashed"...

What transpired there confirmed the idea and ability of computer networking. This first small step in my opinion, had broken ground for what we have today, although this network we now know as the world wide web is beyond anything that those scientists 40 years ago could have probably ever imagined.

Source: "Roads and Crossroads of Internet History" by Gregory Gromov, Chapter #1

Most Important Breakthrough

The thing that really made the idea of the World Wide Web workable was the developmment of a common language that could allow computers to communicate with another. This language, developed in 1974 by ARPA scientists, was know as transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP). The idea behind TCP/IP was that:

1. Each network should be able to work on its own, developing its own applications without restraint and requiring no modification to participate in the Internet.
2. Within each network there would be a 'gateway', which would link it to the 'outside world'. This would be a larger computer (in order to handle the volume of traffic) with the necessary software to transmit and redirect any 'packages'.
3. This gateway software would retain no information about the traffic passing through. This was designed to cut-down workload and to speed up the traffic, but it also remove a possible means of censorship and control.
4. Packages would be routed through the fastest available route. If one computer was blocked or slow, the packages would be rerouted through the new until they eventually reached their destination.
5. The gateways between the networks would always be open, and they would route the traffic without discrimination.

This language contained the building blocks and framework for how information was to be distributed through the network, know now as the world wide web.

Source: Chapter Two: From ARPANET to World Wide Web Richard T. Griffiths (Leiden University)

Most Important Person

As far as the person who contributed the most to the Web as we know it, I chose Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Among his greatest achievements, aside from his work with URls, HTTP and HTMl, I believe, was the founding of the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3,in 1994. Without bringing cohesion to the emerging internet browser companies, the web would have been left fragmented and exclusive. The W3 ensures the continuing consistency and stability of the internet as a whole. This is even more important now as the next phase of internet history is written. Some interesting facts relating to Sir Tim Berners-Lee:

• Date Of Birth
• 1955
• London

• School Days
• Banned from using the university's, (Queens College, Oxford), computer when he and a friend were caught hacking.
• Built own computer with old TV, a Motorola microprocessor and soldering iron.

• The Web
• Created web in late 1980s and early 1990s at Cern, offered it for free on the net.
• In 1994 he founded World Wide Web Consortium at MIT.
• Time magazine named him one of the top 20 thinkers of the 20th Century.
• Knighted in 2003.

Source: A Little History of the World Wide Web and BBC News