| Year |
Event |
| 1969 |
Advanced Research Projects Agency goes online connecting four U.S. universities |
| 1972 |
Electronic mail is introduced by Ray Tomlinson at Cambridge Massachusetts |
| 1973 |
TCP/IP and FTP is designed to allow communication and file sharing from computer to computer |
| 1982 |
The word "internet" is used for the first time |
| 1984 |
Domain Name System (DNS) is established with network addresses identified by .com .org .edu |
| 1986 |
Quantum Computer Services which later changes names to American Online debuts |
| 1989 |
The World (world.std.com) debuts as the first dial-up Internet access for consumers |
| 1989 |
Tim Berners-Lee develops hypertext and hyperlinks giving the web it’s first graphical user interface |
| 1990 |
The first internet index is created by Peter Deutsch who devices "Archie" an archive of FTP sites |
| 1991 |
Gopher debuts which provides point-and-click navigation and becomes the most popular interface |
| 1993 |
Mosaic becomes the dominant navigating system for the World Wide Web |
| 1994 |
"Spamming" is coined as commerce sites launch mass marketing campaigns via email |
| 1994 |
Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark start Netscape Communications and debut the Navigator browser |
| 1994 |
Yahoo! is founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo |
| 1995 |
CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy start providing dial-up internet access |
| 1995 |
Sun Microsystems releases the internet programming language Java |
| 1995 |
AuctionWeb later named ebay is launched |
| 1995 |
Amazon.com is launched and sells its first book |
| 1995 |
Craigslist is created by Craig Newmark first as an email to friends of local social events |
| 1996 |
45 million people are using the internet, 30 million of those are in the U.S. and Canada |
| 1998 |
Google opens its first office in California |
| 1999 |
College student Shawn Fanning invents Napster an music file sharing program |
| 1999 |
The number of Internet users worldwide reaches 150 million, 75 million in the U.S. |
| 1999 |
"E-commerce" becomes the new buzzword as internet shopping rapidly spreads |
| 1999 |
MySpace.com is launched |
| 2000 |
X.com and Confinity merge to form PayPal.com |
| 2000 |
The internet bubble bursts as the Nasdaq stock plunges causing many dotcoms to close |
| 2000 |
America Online buys Time Warner for $16 billion. It’s the biggest merger of all time |
| 2001 |
Wikipedia is created |
| 2002 |
58.8 % of the U.S. population uses the internet. Worldwide there are 544.2 million users |
| 2003 |
An estimated 2.6 billion music files are being illegally downloaded each month |
| 2003 |
Apple introduces iTunes Music Store allowing people to download songs for 99 cents each |
| 2004 |
Facebook is launched by Mark |
| 2004 |
Online spending reaches a record high – $117 billion |
| 2005 |
YouTube.com is launched |
| 2006 |
There are more than 92 million websites online |
| 2006 |
Wikleaks.org is founded by Julian Assange |
| 2006 |
Twitter.com is launched |
| 2007 |
World of Warcraft surpasses 9 million subscribers worldwide |
| 2007 |
Microsoft buys aQuantive for $6 billion in a move to catch up with Google |
| 2008 |
Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion |
| 2008 |
Wikileaks.org is launched |
| 2012 |
There are now 2.267 billion Internet users worldwide |
