Assignment 1: History of the Internet
Al Gore, inventor of the internet
Pre-History
Back in the day, people dreamed of a computer that would allow the solving of math problems beyond the capabilities of the abacus. So they invented the computer. As computers got cooler and cooler, it became less cool to be using your computer alone, then writing down your results and communicating by phone and mail and stuff.
ARPA
After some early concepts of large scale computer networks at MIT and UCLA, in the 1960s the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) began coordinated efforts to build what would be called ARPANET. It begins with a handful of connected nodes but grows steadily over time. ARPA became DARPA and new network protocols were invented and refined.
1980s-90s
In this time, the internet got fully invented. Tim Berners-Lee envisions hypertext conceptually, and then creates HTML and browsers and the first webpage. CERN continues working on the stuff to make it all work.
In 1991-1993 a bunch more servers come online and there starts to be something substantial. There are now browsers that you can use if you wanna. In 1993 the number of HTTP servers grows from around 50 to around 200. 1994 sees the formation of the W3 Consortium, the organization that maintains web standards to this day.
But the web wasn't really much of anything until they made Twitter, in 2006. The end.
Sources
W3C's A Little History of the World Wide Web
World Wide Web Foundation's History of the Web
Computer History Museum's Internet History