WHERE DID THE INTERNET ORIGINATE AND WHY DID IT COME ABOUT? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Internet as we know it today is the result of the combination of multiple concepts, theories and contributions from various scholars. All these elements have been combined to give rise to the service we enjoy on a daily basis.

Therefore, it is not possible to speak of a single person who has created the Internet or of a single place in which it has emerged, but of a conglomerate whose contributions favored the development of this network.

In any case, the invention of the internet is attributed to Dr. Leonard Kleinrock, who proposed the creation of a world network in his text "Information flow in large communication networks" (published in May, 1961).

From that year on, in the United States, work began on the development of ARPANET, a network that would be the predecessor of the internet.

This was a joint effort between various American institutes, among which the University of California - Los Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute stand out, supported by the United States Department of Defense.

The internet was created in order to facilitate communication between connected systems at the local, regional, national and international levels. That is, to facilitate the exchange of information.

Where did the Internet originate?

The first steps towards the creation of the internet were taken in the United States, in the form of a collaboration between the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA), the Stanford Research Institute (RSI, for its acronym in English Research Institute of Stanford), other research institutes and the United States Department of Defense.

In 1961, Dr. Leonard Kleinrock published an essay entitled "Information Flow in Large Communication Networks." In this text Dr. Kleinrock laid the foundations for the development of the internal network or internet.

In this same period, JCR Licklider was appointed head of the Office of Information Processing Techniques, attached to the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense (DARPA, for its acronym in English Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

As head of this office, Licklider expressed his desire to have a world connected through a network.

However, Licklider was not a computer or programmer, so he hired a group of specialists to carry out his idea.

Lawrence Roberts was in charge of executing Licklider's orders and, eventually, he would be the creator of ARPANET, the Internet's predecessor network.

Roberts was the first person to put into practice the network theory that Dr. Kleinrock had created. The data transfer networks developed by Roberts at this stage are still in use today.

DARPA and the United States Research Institutes

In the 1960s, DARPA collaborated with various research institutes in the United States to develop the network that would connect computers worldwide.

Between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, for its acronym in English Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and DARPA, there was an information exchange agreement regarding information technologies.

For its part, the University of California - Berkeley was working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in connecting computers through a telephone network.

In this process, Ivan Sutherland and Bob Taylor intervened, who made great strides in the development of ARPANET.

ARPANET Development: Massachusettes Institute of Technology

In 1966, Lawrence Roberts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with the support of DARPA, first introduced ARPANET into the institute's laboratories. In 1969, the network expanded.

This allowed researchers from other institutes to connect to the network created by DARPA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The first institutions to connect to ARPANET were the University of California - Los Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute.

On August 29, 1969, the first remote message was sent from one server to another, from Dr. Kleinrock's laboratory at the University of California - Los Angeles to the Stanford Research Institute. In this way, what had been a "dream" of Dr. Kleinrock became a reality.

Starting in 1970, the network expanded to other institutes in the United States, such as the University of California - Santa Barbara and the University of Utah. By 1973, ARPANET already had servers in London, United Kingdom.

From Internet to ARPANET

In 1989, Tim Berners Lee, a British computer writer at CERN, invented the World Wide Web, which gave birth to the internet as we know it today.

Berners Lee's idea was to create an information system that linked texts through hyperlinks. To achieve this, this scientist included the use of hypertext transfer protocols (HTTP) to connect the text network to a computer.

In this way, a computer was no longer being connected to another, but a relationship was being established between a computer and all the information available on the network.

Also, the WWW system made it possible to exchange information between computers that were not compatible.

In summary, the internet emerged in the laboratories of the University of California - Los Angeles, the Stanford Research Institute, the Agency for Advanced Research Projects, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California - Berkeley and CERN.

Why did the internet come about?

The internet arose from the need to connect computers around the world through a network that would allow the exchange of information. In this way, the ARPANET was created, which established connections between computers.

Subsequently, the World Wide Web (www) emerged with the aim of creating an information network that linked texts through links and links. The object of this network was to create a connection between the computer and this virtual library.

References

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