The History of the Internet: How it Changed the World

The story begins in the 1960s during the terrifying Cold War. The US Government was terrified that a single Russian nuclear bomb could destroy their massive central military computers, cutting off all communication in America. To solve this, the US Department of Defense funded a secret project called ARPANET. They built a 'decentralized' network of computers. If one city was nuked, the computers in other cities could still secretly talk to each other. Historic Moment: In October 1969, the first ever message sent over the internet was the word "LOGIN". But the system crashed halfway, so the very first word ever transmitted on the internet was simply "LO".

For 20 years, the internet was extremely boring. It was strictly used by military scientists to send black-and-white text files to each other. The massive revolution happened in 1989 in Switzerland. A brilliant British scientist named Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW). He created the magical concept of 'Clickable Links' (Hypertext) and Web Pages. Suddenly, the internet wasn't just for sending files; it became a massive, beautiful digital library with colors and pictures that normal humans could explore.

In 1993, the World Wide Web was officially made free for the entire public. Companies like Yahoo! and Google were born. The massive invention of Wi-Fi in the late 90s, followed by the iPhone in 2007, brought the massive power of the internet from heavy desktop computers directly into the pockets of billions of people.