This is some of the history about the internet
The internet
According to wikipedia, the Internet takes it’s starts with the efforts of engineers and scientists to create and interconnect computer networks.
The Internet is a global “network of networks”—a vast system of interconnected private, public, academic, business, and government networks that communicate using the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP), as well as UDP wikipedia. At its core lie four conceptual layers: the link layer (e.g., Ethernet, Wi‑Fi), the Internet layer (IP v4/v6), the transport layer (providing both reliable TCP and connectionless UDP), and the application layer, where services like HTTP and HTML enable applications like the World Wide Web.
Origins of the Internet date back to packet switching research and time‑sharing in the 1960s, leading to ARPANET development funded in the early 1970s by DARPA. In 1973–74, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn created TCP (later TCP/IP), finally adopted broadly in the early 1980s . The dramatic global expansion came in the mid-1990s with the addition of fiber‑optic infrastructure and technologies like WDM, enabling gigabit‑level speeds. By 2000, over half of all telecommunicated information used the Internet—rising to over 97 % by 2007.
At the application level, the World Wide Web—invented by Tim Berners‑Lee at CERN in 1989 and opened to public in 1993—relies on HTTP and HTML to link hypertext documents via URLs, making multimedia and interactive content accessible through browsers . Beyond the Web, the Internet supports key services such as e‑mail, VoIP, file sharing, instant messaging, streaming media, online gaming, and social media.
Governance of the Internet is decentralized: the IETF develops and maintains core technical standards for IP, TCP, UDP, HTTP, and DNS, while ICANN oversees unique identifiers like domain names and IP addresses to ensure global interoperability.
In summary, the Internet is built on the TCP/IP protocol suite layered from physical connection to applications, enabling the global exchange of data and services. It evolved from 1960s research, standardized through DARPA-funded development in the 1970s, and exploded into modern infrastructure supporting everything from the Web to streaming and real-time communication.
- TCP – ensures data is delivered reliably and in the correct order.
- IP – handles the addressing and routing of packets (small chunks of data) between devices.
- UDP – A faster but less reliable alternative to TCP. It is often used for streaming and online gaming where speed matters more than perfect delivery.
- Link layer – The lowest layer in the Internet protocol suite. It deals with the physical connection between devices (e.g., Ethernet cables, Wi‑Fi).
- Internet layer – Handles addressing and routing. It uses IP addresses to identify where data should go.
- Transport layer – Manages how data is sent. It includes TCP and UDP, controlling things like speed and reliability of data transmission.
- Application layer – The top layer where Internet services like web browsers, e‑mail, and online games run. It includes protocols like HTTP and DNS.
- HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) – A protocol used to transfer web pages and other content over the Internet.
- HTML (HyperText Markup Language) – A coding language used to create and structure content on the web, such as text, images, and links.
- World Wide Web (WWW) – A system of interlinked web pages and multimedia content that can be accessed via the Internet using a web browser.
- URL (Uniform Resource Locator) – The address you type into a browser to visit a website (e.g., https://example.com).
- ARPANET – The first version of the Internet, created in the 1960s by the U.S. military agency DARPA. It was the first network to use packet switching.
- Packet Switching – A method of breaking down data into smaller pieces (packets) to send them more efficiently across a network.
- VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) – A technology that lets people make phone calls over the Internet instead of traditional telephone lines.
- ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) – An organization that manages domain names (like .com, .org) and IP addresses to ensure everything works together on the global Internet.
- IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) – A group that develops and maintains technical standards and protocols like TCP/IP, HTTP, and DNS.