TECHNOLOGY has advanced at such an incredible rate that in recent years it’s hard for many youngsters to believe there was even a world before broadband, Facebook and Google.
Superfast connections at home and on the go allow speedy searching, shopping and communication all around the world.
That means when it comes to surfing online we can check out the best of the web whenever and wherever we like.
But how much do you know about the history of the web – and when its biggest websites came to be?
Below we’ve pulled together a timeline of the key moments to remind some readers, and educate others!
History of the web
1966
American scientist Robert Taylor begins the ARPAnet project to link computers, laying the early foundations of the internet.
1972
Email is born, as Ray Tomlinson invents a system for sending messages between individual users on a network, using the @ symbol.
1978
Prestel, a BT world-first which was hailed by many as the “pre-internet internet”. It was Britain’s own commercial, online, networked service that would transmit data, offer online services and exchange electronic mails.
1991
Tim Berners-Lee launches the world’s first website, http://info.cern.ch, with information about the web.
1995
Jeff Bezos launches his online bookshop, Amazon.com. 16 million people are online globally – less than 0.5% of the world’s population.
1996
BT Internet is launched, a residential mass market internet dial-up service.
1996
Larry Page and Sergey Brin register the domain google.com and bbc.co.uk is launched.
2001
2002
BT Broadband is launched.
2003
677 million people are online, more than 10% of the world’s population.
2004
Mark Zuckerberg starts Facebook.
2005
The first clip ‘me at the zoo’ was uploaded by YouTube co founder Jawed Karim.
This article was brought to you in association with BT.