Merit Network

Early research and development:

• 1960–4 (1960–4): RAND networking concepts developed
• 1962–4 (1962–4): ARPA networking ideas
• 1965 (1965): NPL network concepts conceived
• 1966 (1966): Merit Network founded
• 1967 (1967): ARPANET planning begins
• 1967 (1967): Symposium on Operating Systems Principles
• 1969 (1969): NPL followed by the ARPANET carry their first packets
• 1970 (1970): Network Information Center (NIC)
• 1971 (1971): Tymnet switched-circuit network
• 1972 (1972): Merit Network's packet-switched network operational
• 1972 (1972): Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) established
• 1973 (1973): CYCLADES network demonstrated
• 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 approved 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 (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
• 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 Exchanges (FIX East|FIXes)
• 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 (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

Examples of Internet services:

• 1989 (1989): AOL dial-up service provider, email, instant messaging, and web browser
• 1990 (1990): IMDb Internet movie database
• 1994 (1994): Yahoo! web directory
• 1995 (1995): Amazon online retailer
• 1995 (1995): eBay online auction and shopping
• 1995 (1995): Craigslist classified advertisements
• 1995 (1995): AltaVista search engine
• 1996 (1996): Outlook (formerly Hotmail) free web-based e-mail
• 1996 (1996): RankDex search engine
• 1997 (1997): Google Search
• 1997 (1997): Babel Fish automatic translation
• 1998 (1998): Yahoo Groups (formerly Yahoo! Clubs)
• 1998 (1998): PayPal Internet payment system
• 1998 (1998): Rotten Tomatoes review aggregator
• 1999 (1999): 2ch Anonymous textboard
• 1999 (1999): i-mode mobile internet service
• 1999 (1999): Napster peer-to-peer file sharing
• 2000 (2000): Baidu search engine
• 2001 (2001): 2chan Anonymous imageboard
• 2001 (2001): BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing
• 2001 (2001): Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• 2003 (2003): LinkedIn business networking
• 2003 (2003): Myspace social networking site
• 2003 (2003): Skype Internet voice calls
• 2003 (2003): iTunes Store
• 2003 (2003): 4chan Anonymous imageboard
• 2003 (2003): The Pirate Bay, torrent file host
• 2004 (2004): Facebook social networking site
• 2004 (2004): Podcast media file series
• 2004 (2004): Flickr image hosting
• 2005 (2005): YouTube video sharing
• 2005 (2005): Reddit link voting
• 2005 (2005): Google Earth virtual globe
• 2006 (2006): Twitter microblogging
• 2007 (2007): WikiLeaks anonymous news and information leaks
• 2007 (2007): Google Street View
• 2007 (2007): Kindle, e-reader and virtual bookshop
• 2008 (2008): Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
• 2008 (2008): Dropbox cloud-based file hosting
• 2008 (2008): Encyclopedia of Life, a collaborative encyclopedia intended to document all living species
• 2008 (2008): Spotify, a DRM-based music streaming service
• 2009 (2009): Bing search engine
• 2009 (2009): Google Docs, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, form, and data storage service
• 2009 (2009): Kickstarter, a threshold pledge system
• 2009 (2009): Bitcoin, a digital currency
• 2010 (2010): Instagram, photo sharing and social networking
• 2011 (2011): Google+, social networking
• 2011 (2011): Snapchat, photo sharing
• 2012 (2012): Coursera, massive open online courses
• 2016 (2016): TikTok, video sharing and social networking