The Internet is a network of computers transferring data along communication lines.
The Internet was started in the late 1960s as a response to the Cold War - a defense research network and fail-safe communications system in case of a national emergency. It originally connected four universities: University of California at Los Angeles, Stanford Research Center, University of California at Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. The Internet today consists of over 10,000 different computer services and networks operated by governments, corporations, and non-profits.
The World Wide Web did not come into existence until the early 1990's. Tim Berners-Lee, working at the CERN in Switzerland, wanted to find a way to link several of his research projects together. His willingness to share his "hyperlink" ideas with others led the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana) to utilize his ideas with others in creating Mosaic, the first graphical browser.
Mark Andreesen, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, saw commercial potential for graphical browsers. Upon graduation, Marc teamed up with Jim Clark to create Netscape. After several years of watching Netscape's increasing success, Microsoft created Internet Explorer.
A new web site added every 4 seconds
Web traffic doubles every 100 days
Over 3 million users
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Created by Cathy Bell
ŠSept. 2001