World Wide Web Proposed

Setting the scene

By 1989, the internet existed as ARPANET and NSFNET, connecting universities and research labs, but it was difficult to use—requiring knowledge of complex protocols and lacking a unified way to access information. Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist at CERN in Switzerland, had been working on information management systems. CERN had thousands of researchers from around the world using different computers and needing to share documents. Berners-Lee envisioned a system of hypertext—linked documents—that would work across different systems.

What happened

On March 12, 1989, Berners-Lee submitted a proposal to his boss at CERN titled 'Information Management: A Proposal.' It described a system using hypertext to link documents across a network, with three core technologies: HTML (HyperText Markup Language) for creating pages, HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) for transferring them, and URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) for addressing them. His boss, Mike Sendall, wrote 'vague but exciting' on the cover and allowed him to proceed. Berners-Lee built the first web browser (WorldWideWeb) and web server on a NeXT computer in late 1990.

Why it still matters

The World Wide Web was released to the public in 1991 and CERN made it royalty-free in 1993. The web transformed the internet from a tool for academics into a mass medium. By 1995, commercial websites appeared; by 2000, the dot-com boom was underway. The web democratized publishing, commerce, and communication, creating companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Berners-Lee deliberately did not patent the web, ensuring it remained open. The web's invention is considered one of the most consequential technological developments in history, fundamentally changing how humanity accesses information, conducts business, and interacts socially.

Background

The first website went live a couple of years later.