HOW THE WEB WAS WON

On June 23, 1980, English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee of CERN, a physics lab in Switzerland, began working on a project he called ENQUIRE. This work would eventually evolve into hypertext, HTML and the World Wide Web.

1989 March 12

Berners-Lee of CERN proposes a project to develop a language that would link computer-based knowledge around the world. This would

become HTML and the resulting networking would become today’s World Wide Web.

1990 Dec. 25

Berners-Lee begins distributing his work on the World Wide Web to the public.

1991 Aug. 6

Berners-Lee posts the world’s first website at CERN.

Dec. 9

The High Performance Computing and Communication Act — also

known as the Gore Bill, after Sen. Al Gore, who introduced the legislation

— leads to connecting existing networks into what becomes known as “the information superhighway.” The Gore Bill also provides funding for the development of Mosaic, which

will become the world’s first popularly used web browser.

1993 April 22

The National

Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois makes Mosaic available for free on its website. Soon, more than 5,000 copies are downloaded each month.

1994

Berners-Lee founds the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT. He still

serves as its director of web standards, 26 years later.

Jan. 11

Leaders in government, academia, communications and entertainment

industries hold a summit at UCLA. Gore, the keynote speaker for the nationally-televised conference, calls for private investment in the informa

tion superhighway and for government and industry to ensure that schools get hooked up quickly and that access be universal.

January

A pair of Stanford University students create “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web.” Two months later, they change its name to Yahoo!

July 5

Jeff Bezos creates an online mail-or

der book retailer he calls Cadabra – as in “Abra cadabra.” His lawyer mishears the name as “cadaver,” so, a year later, Bezos changes the name to Amazon. The company will turn its first profit in 2001.

Oct. 13

A team of Mosaic developers led by Marc Andreessen launches an updated commercial version of Mosaic

called Netscape.

Oct. 21

The first official White House website launches at whitehouse.gov. Users who type in whitehouse.com get a rude surprise: A porn site has already taken that address.

August

The NCSA, via its commercial software arm, Spyglass, licenses Mosaic to Microsoft. A modified version

becomes Internet Explorer.

1996 January

Two Ph.D. students at Stanford University create a search engine based on relationships between links, rather than how many times a word appears on a webpage. Originally called “Backrub,” the engine is forced off the university’s servers by its growing popularity. It later

changes its name to Google.

July

The first public version of Opera – version 2.0 – is introduced by the Telenor company of Oslo, Norway.

July 17

President Bill Clinton signs an executive order asking all federal agencies to utilize information technology to make data available to the public.

1998 February

Netscape creates the Mozilla project, which will create an open-source browser.

May

The U.S. Justice Department files an antitrust case against Microsoft, arguing the company abuses its position as the world’s largest

operating system by bundling

November

AOL buys Netscape for $4.2 billion. Unsuccessful in its efforts to make money with Netscape, AOL discontinues support for the browser four months later.

1999 March 9

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf

Blitzer, Gore implies he created the internet. His comments are widely ridiculed throughout the 2000 presidential campaign.

2000 March

Thousands of web-based startup companies have gone public, issued stock and raised millions of capital funds — which, in turn, pushes the Nasdaq Composite market index to an all-time high. As news is reported that few of these “dot-coms” are actually turning a profit, the bubble

bursts and the market crashes hard.

May 4

An internet virus called ILOVEYOU is launched in the Philippines and quickly spreads via Windows users,

deleting data and infecting more than 50 million computers worldwide. The Pentagon and CIA temporarily disconnect their networks from the web.

Sept. 14

Gore pokes fun at his own misstatement by reading a Top 10 list on the “Late Show With David Letterman.” No. 9 on the list: “Remember, America, I gave you the internet.

And I can take it away!”

2001 July 11

Napster, a popular site for swapping music files in mp3 format, is ordered shut down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for copyright violations. At its peak, more than 57 million users

had used the service.

2002

The rise in user-generated content, blogs and wikis heralds the start of what comes to be called “web 2.0.”

2003 January

Apple launches its own native browser, Safari.

2004 Feb. 4

Mark Zuckerberg launches “the Facebook” — as it’s known then — as a social network for Harvard University. The next month, it expands to eight other universities, mostly in the Northeast.

February

Mozilla — which converts into a nonprofit organization in 2003 — releases its Firefox web browser.

2005 Feb. 14

Three PayPal employees create YouTube — a host for video uploads

— after unsuccessfully searching for footage of Janet Jackson’s infamous Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction.”

2006 Sept. 26

Facebook widens its pool of users to include anyone over the age of 18.

2008 September

Google Chrome is released for PC. A Mac version follows the next June.

2009 June 3

Microsoft launches its Bing search engine to compete with Google, which has dominated the market for search engines.

2011 April 29

The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton is livestreamed by 72 million viewers.

2015 Feb. 26

After a lengthy public debate, the Federal Communications Commission votes to prohibit internet carriers from providing unequal service — especially in terms of speed and bandwidth — to users. This becomes

known as “net neutrality.” The Donald Trump administration rolls back those regulations in 2017.