The foundation of these notes is taken from Barry Luijbregts' PluralSight course called HTML, CSS, and Javascript: The big Picture. The images are screen captures, a few of which have been edited. Some additional information is included from various sources, which are listed at the bottom of each post in the References section. Most notably from CERN's A Short History of The Web, which I strongly recommend you read.
This post is part of a long-term series called The Web Series. To start from the beginning, check out History of The Web. The Web Series includes everything you need to get started on the path of web development.
History
1960s Network Packet Switching research
In attempts to create networks that could survive nuclear war, information would be divided into message blocks that would travel separately. This is the basis for the internet. I'll look more into this in the future, so stay tuned.
Late 1960s NPL and ARPANET
Networks that implement packet switching emerge. There were a handful of these networks including NPL and ARPANET. ARPANET connected the University of California to the Stanford Research Institute. These networks were private, so there was no public access. Go figure, she said sarcastically.
1972 Satellite link US - Europe
Connecting the Norwegian Seismic Array to the ARPANET was the first time the United States was connected to Europe.
1981 Access to ARPANET expanded
The National Science Foundation (NSF) created the Computer Science Network, which connected to ARPANET using TCPIP.
1981 IP4 published
The implementation of TCPIP still used to run most of the internet's traffic today. We can thank IP4 for allowing the internet to become public access.
Late 1980s First ISPs emerged
To help companies and consumers access the internet.
1989, March WorldWideWeb (WWW) proposed
The concept and the term were proposed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British Computer Scientist. The idea was of an open information system that was populated with documents reachable through URLs.
1990, May WWW Second Proposal proposed
1990, November WWW Proposals formalised
Working together with Robert Cailliau, a systems engineer from Belgium, Sir Tim Berners-Lees rewrote the proposals as WorldWideWeb, Proposal for a HyperText Project.
1990 The first Browser
As a proof of concept, Berners-Lee had developed the first Web server and browser on a NeXT computer at CERN. At this point, the internet was covered in HTML.
To prevent it being accidentally switched off, the computer had a hand-written label in red ink: "This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER IT DOWN!!"
1994 Cascading HTML Style Sheets (CSS)
CSS was introduced to allow for images, style, and better formatting to improve those HTML documents.
1995 JavaScript (JS)
JS was introduced to allow more freedom of programming for the Web. This was to include more simple automation, animation, and interactivity. Netscape originally called it Mocha, as the intended users were young enough to drink Mochas; Then they called it LiveScript, as 'live' was a buzzword at the time; Then finally JavaScript.
1999 The Internet Goes Mobile
Mobile phones had started to show up. These were pre-SmartPhones, but some did have simple access to the internet. This is around the time my parents got their first mobile phones, but it would take about 15 more years for them to start using the internet on their phones.
2000 414-Million Internet Users
414'000'000 people had access to the internet. Businesses, Schools, and users had started making their own sites. This is the time of early Neopets, Newgrounds,
2001 Runscape's First Release
2004, February Facebook Launches
Zuckerberg launched the first version of Facebook, a Harvard student directory with pictures. Within around 24 hours, over a thousand users had registered. Feel free to watch The Social Network (2010). In my personal opinion, it's better than people make it sound.
2004 Defense of the Ancients Released
I just learned that Runescape is older than the original DOTA, neat.
2005 Youtube was born
Started by three former employees PayPal, Youtube was acquired by Google in 2006. I thought this was years into Youtube being popular. I remember hearing about it in the news. Google had its own video sharing platform which was not as good. Users preferred Youtube. What's-it's-name was closed a few years after the acquisition.
2008 Google Chrome
Just thirteen years ago, Chrome was released. MySpace had lost popularity; AOL, MSN messenger, and ebuddy were all the rage.
2008 Blockchain
Invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, whom it is still not known if they are in individual or group of people, in 2008 as the public ledger of Bitcoin transactions.
2009, July China Leaves the WWW
Goodbye Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Now we have Weibo, WeChat, QQ, BiliBili, and many more. I'll admit that Chinese programs have some features I have come to miss whenever I use Western programs. Since Smartphones are the most popular means of access to the internet, they're seriously souped out. Even the apps are quite the experience once you have a good foundation of Mandarin. Some even have an English GUI!
2017 3.9-Billion Internet Users
4.9% of all [I assume we're excluding the PRC here] webpage views from mobile devices.
2018 StarLink by SpaceX
A constellation of satellites to provide internet to those in areas when access is unfeasible, be it too expensive of infrastructure to set up for the population, too rural of terrain, or other reasons why the connection is too expensive or unreliable. By the time of publishing this article, I have already read and watched many posts on Starlink. It's grand. If somehow you haven't heard of this project, you deserve to check it out.
For now, ignore anything 2000 onward. As you can see in this timeline, there were two major themes. The internet was created (darker fonts), this is the plumbing that connects all of our devices. And the WorldWideWeb was created to allow us to actually use the internet through our web browsers. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript empower us to make the Web of today as we know and love it. This paragraph was just a ton of paraphrasing Barry Luijbregts' PluralSight course called HTML, CSS, and Javascript: The big Picture.
Resources
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: The Big Picture, by Billy Luijbregts, Jan 16, 2020. Pluralsite.
https://www.slideshare.net/sangusajjan/unit-i-packet-switching-networks
A Short History of the Web, CERN. Last Accessed April 7, 2021.
Information Management: A Proposal, Tim Berners-Lee, CERN March 1989, May 1990
WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project, T. Berners-Lee/CN, R. Cailliau/ECP, 12 November 1990
The Great Firewall of China, Ruiwei Bu, CSC 540, Murry State University, 2013
China Blocks Access to Facebook, Twitter After Riots; Tech Crunch, July 7, 2009.
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