Internet Day is a celebration of this culmination of computing and communication technology, and they way it has brought all our lives together. The first letters ever transmitted across the prodigal Internet, which consisted of two computers, were “L” and “O”.
Let’s go back to where it all started. The Internet, defined as a remote connection between two computers, was first achieved on October 29, 1969. In the glow of a green monochrome screen deep in the bowels of the computer science department at UCLA, a young graduate student picked up his phone and called the computer lab at Stanford. He is preparing to send the first message over an Internet connection. The men on either end of the phone are Charley Kline and Bill Duvall.
Leonard Kleinrock, Charley Kline and Bill Duvall were the key players in the first Internet connection. Working on the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), a network funded by the US Defense Department that connected four independent terminals installed at ULCA, Stanford, the University of California-Santa Barbara and the University of Utah, Charley Kline attempted to send login information from UCLA to Bill Duvall at Stanford.
While the Internet may not have been possible without a million other monumental inventions that came before it, it’s hard to find any other invention that has had such a monumental impact on mankind. That’s why, since October 29, 2005, we’ve been celebrating the anniversary of the first Internet transmission. It is a chance to celebrate the people who helped build the internet, while also giving us a moment to reflect on all the ways that it has changed our lives forever.
So here’s the top 10 most interesting facts about the Internet that you know of today:
- Today, the Internet is 8,354 days old. Check net to keep up to date.
- You can find the very first website here; and yes, it still exists.
- The first registered domain was com.
- Berners-Lee uploaded the first image to the Internet. It is of a joke band of women from the nuclear research lab CERN.
- The GIF format was invented by Steve Wilke, an engineer at Compuserve in 1987. Mr. Wilhite maintains the correct pronunciation of the term is “jiff.” He is clearly wrong.
- This is what Google looked like in 2004:
- Twitter has 250 million users and 12. 500 milion tweets are sent ever day. The first tweet was sent on March 21, 2006 by Jack Dorsey. Can you believe it, 10 Years ago!!!
- The first YouTube video was uploaded April 23, 2005. It’s called “Me at the zoo,” and features Jawed Karim, one of the founders, at the San Diego Zoo. “Gangnam Style” by Psy is still the most viewed YouTube video of all time. It’s been viewed over two billion times.
- This is what Facebook looked like in 2004:
- There are 191.3 million Tumblr blogs and 83.1 billion Tumblr posts. The most popular Tumblr is the official updates page for Minecraft.
