In the middle of the Cold War with the USSR, the Americans were afraid that a single missile from the Soviets could destroy their entire national telephone system. So, the Americans started researching other ways to keep their communications up.
An American scientist from M.I.T and ARPA proposed a solution to this problem named a “galactic network”. This solution had the idea that computers from all over the world could communicate with each. This would enable governments to be able to communicate even if the Soviets destroyed their telephone network.
Another scientist from M.I.T. developed a way to send data from one computer to another. He called this process “Packet Switching”. This process breaks down the data into smaller portions (packets) and then sends these portions to their destinations. This means that the packets can each take their own path to the desired destination. This was used by the government communication network that was called ARPA.
ARPAnet delivered its very first message. It was a “node-to-node” communication from one computer to another. The message was “LOGIN”, although the message was short, it still managed to crash the fledging ARPA network. The receiver of the message only received the first 2 letters of the word.
The University of Hawaii’s ALOHAnet was added to the network. A few years later they also added more nets from across the world, including London’s University College, and Royal Radar Establishment in Norway.
A programmer from Switzerland introduced the World Wide Web. This was an internet that could not just be used to send data from one computer to another, this was an interconnected web of data that could be accessed by anyone.
Students and researchers collaborated at the University of Illinois and developed a browser called Mosaic. This browser allowed users to see text and images on one page at the same time. This was revolutionary at the time. They also made use of scroll wheels and hyperlinks to navigate these pages.