The World Wide Web celebrated its 20th birthday yesterday.
Invented by the British scientist Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, the World Wide Web was born on August 6, 1991, when Berners-Lee launched the first web page on the internet.
Basic: Sir Tim Berners-Lee's first web site, launched on 6th August 1991, was simply a page of links to allow scientists to share data and news
The London-born physicist and computer scientist was working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva when he sought to find a better way for his colleagues to link up.
He first proposed the WWW in 1989 and posted a prophetic summary of the project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup, saying: 'The WWW project aims to allow all links to be made to any information anywhere.'
The first website - Welcome to info.cern.ch - was hosted at the rather cryptic URL nxoc01.cern.ch.
When it went live, Sir Berners-Lee, 56, said: 'We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome.'
Revolutionary: British scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee was named Greatest Briton at the Great Britons 2004 Awards for his invention of the World Wide Web and, in 2002, the British public voted him the 99th Greatest Briton in the 100 Greatest Britons poll
And collaborate they did. By 1992, there were 50 web servers around the world and, as of Friday, there were 19.68billion pages - more than three times the world's population.
In between, it has been the platform for the boom and bust of dot-com businesses in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the inexorable rise of social networking, Google and YouTube, and the more sinister art of cyber crime.
This NeXT Computer used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the first web server
Rise of the World Wide Web
Domain names that now form the base of the web network, pre-date the first web site by six years.
The first commercial domain name, symbolics.com, was registered on March 15, 1985.
The phrase 'surfing the internet' was coined by author Jean Armour Polly in June 1992.
Archie was the first tool to search the internet.
In 2008, mobile access to the web exceeded desktop computer-based access for the first time.
According to worldwidewebsize.com, the web now contains of least 19.68 billion pages - more than three times the world's population.
The WWW should not be confused with the internet. They are related, but not the same.
The term internet, coined in 1974, refers to the vast networking infrastructure that connects millions of computers, while the WWW is the method of accessing information over the internet through web pages.
Berners-Lee isn't credited with connecting up all the computers - he developed three technologies that made it possible for users to better find and share information among these connected systems.
His first development were uniform resource locators (URLs), which are like mailing addresses for information.
His second is HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which is the code a web browser needs to show the text, graphics and hyperlinking systems.
His third invention was the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that enables requests and file transmissions to occur between Web browsers and web servers.
Berners-Lee was named Great Briton 2004 in a ceremony attended by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and, in 2002, the British public voted him the 99th Greatest Briton in the 100 Greatest Britons poll.
Read more: Science&Tech | Mail Online
Invented by the British scientist Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, the World Wide Web was born on August 6, 1991, when Berners-Lee launched the first web page on the internet.
Basic: Sir Tim Berners-Lee's first web site, launched on 6th August 1991, was simply a page of links to allow scientists to share data and news
The London-born physicist and computer scientist was working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva when he sought to find a better way for his colleagues to link up.
He first proposed the WWW in 1989 and posted a prophetic summary of the project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup, saying: 'The WWW project aims to allow all links to be made to any information anywhere.'
The first website - Welcome to info.cern.ch - was hosted at the rather cryptic URL nxoc01.cern.ch.
When it went live, Sir Berners-Lee, 56, said: 'We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome.'
Revolutionary: British scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee was named Greatest Briton at the Great Britons 2004 Awards for his invention of the World Wide Web and, in 2002, the British public voted him the 99th Greatest Briton in the 100 Greatest Britons poll
And collaborate they did. By 1992, there were 50 web servers around the world and, as of Friday, there were 19.68billion pages - more than three times the world's population.
In between, it has been the platform for the boom and bust of dot-com businesses in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the inexorable rise of social networking, Google and YouTube, and the more sinister art of cyber crime.
This NeXT Computer used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the first web server
Rise of the World Wide Web
Domain names that now form the base of the web network, pre-date the first web site by six years.
The first commercial domain name, symbolics.com, was registered on March 15, 1985.
The phrase 'surfing the internet' was coined by author Jean Armour Polly in June 1992.
Archie was the first tool to search the internet.
In 2008, mobile access to the web exceeded desktop computer-based access for the first time.
According to worldwidewebsize.com, the web now contains of least 19.68 billion pages - more than three times the world's population.
The WWW should not be confused with the internet. They are related, but not the same.
The term internet, coined in 1974, refers to the vast networking infrastructure that connects millions of computers, while the WWW is the method of accessing information over the internet through web pages.
Berners-Lee isn't credited with connecting up all the computers - he developed three technologies that made it possible for users to better find and share information among these connected systems.
His first development were uniform resource locators (URLs), which are like mailing addresses for information.
His second is HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which is the code a web browser needs to show the text, graphics and hyperlinking systems.
His third invention was the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that enables requests and file transmissions to occur between Web browsers and web servers.
Berners-Lee was named Great Briton 2004 in a ceremony attended by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and, in 2002, the British public voted him the 99th Greatest Briton in the 100 Greatest Britons poll.
Read more: Science&Tech | Mail Online
