Every day, you likely use the internet to find answers, stay updated on news, and connect with people around you through your devices.

The internet has evolved significantly over time. While today’s youth have always known the internet, many older individuals remember a time before its existence. So, when was the internet born, and who were its creators? Here are the details.

When did the Internet come into existence?

Most consider January 1, 1983, as the internet’s official launch date, but its foundational work began much earlier, even before the necessary technology was available.

The internet’s creation was a collective effort involving numerous scientists and engineers. Visionaries had proposed concepts for the internet even before the corresponding technology was created, as noted by History.com. In the early 1900s, inventor Nikola Tesla imagined a “world wireless system.” (Interestingly, the electric vehicle company Tesla is named after him).

According to History.com, practical designs for the internet only emerged in the early 1960s when Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider introduced the idea of using computer networks for communication. Before this, computers were primarily utilized for complex computations.

Not long after, computer scientists developed a technique to share electronic data named “packet switching,” a crucial development for the internet, according to History.com.

The late 1960s saw the emergence of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), which received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense. This network was the “first viable prototype of the Internet,” allowing multiple computers to connect on a single network.

ARPANET transmitted its inaugural message on October 29, 1969, from one computer at UCLA to another at Stanford. Each computer was as large as a small house, and the basic message “LOGIN” ended up crashing the network since Stanford only received the first two letters, as stated by History.com.

Advancements continued into the 1970s, led by scientists Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf. They developed a “communications model” that standardized how data was sent across various networks. ARPANET implemented this model on January 1, 1983, marking the start of the “modern” internet.

Who are the creators of the Internet?

The invention of the internet cannot be attributed to a single individual; it was a collaborative effort among many engineers, programmers, and scientists as outlined by History.com. While the modern internet evolved from ARPANET’s communications model by Kahn and Cerf, it’s important to distinguish this from the World Wide Web.

What is the World Wide Web?

In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web, or WWW, which most people recognize today as the internet, enabling users to navigate between different pages via hyperlinks, according to Britannica.

The term World Wide Web is often mistakenly used to refer to the internet itself; however, it is more accurately described as a way to access information online through websites. History.com suggests that the World Wide Web played a significant role in making the internet widely popular.

When did Google start?

Google, the search engine, was established in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, though the concept originated in 1995 within a Stanford University dormitory.

Initially named Backrub, the duo aimed to create a search engine capable of using links to assess the importance of individual webpages on the World Wide Web, as noted by Google.

Eventually, they changed the name to Google, a term inspired by the mathematical terminology representing the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, to illustrate their aim of making information accessible to everyone.

Google attracted the attention of investors in Silicon Valley, leading to the formation of Google Inc. in August 1998. The founders then relocated their operations to a garage, where the company famously began.