When was the Internet invented?

Semaphore lines. Invented: 1684. Widely deployed: 1792

Electronic telegraph. Invented: 1753. Widely deployed: 1844

Hypertext: 1945

Packet switching: Late 1950s, presented 1961.

Email (on the same server, pre internet): 1965

ARPANET goes live: 1969

Proprietary software invented (before, free software was the norm): US vs IBM court case, 1969

@ adresses invented: 1971

TCP/IP: 1974

“Open Letter to Hobbyists” advocating for proprietary software: 1976

BBS: 1978

Usenet: 1980

SMTP: 1981

GNU project founded: 1983

FTP: 1985

IETF founded: 1986

IRC: 1988

WWW and http: 1989

Linux (predating the free BSDs by two years): 1991

Linux goes free software (GPL): 1992

FreeBSD and NetBSD (USL v. BSDi lawsuit settled): 1993

Mosaic (funded by Al Gore): 1991, released 1993

Page-body-grepping WWW search engines: 1993

10 million people online: 1993

I first go online (at work, and later, more regularly, at the library): 1995

OpenBSD: 1995

JavaScript: 1995

LAMP stack (free OS + server + database + scripting language), last puzzle piece Apache: 1995

Cell phones with Internet access: 1996

Cascading Style Sheets: 1996

I get my own modem! Ouch phone bills. Internet mostly IRC, usenet, mailing lists: 1996

ECMAScript 3 (basis of modern JavaScript): 1999

BitTorrent: 2001

XMLHttpRequest object (“AJAX” or “Web 2.0”): debutes 2000, widely used 2002

HTML 5 (yesss!!!! death of Flash!): 2014

Over half of Earth population have access: 2018

It’s not wrong to say “before the Internet” when talking about the 90s. I think they mean “before most people in my own life / circle of acquaintances had the habit or ability to easily look up the particular thing I’m talking about right now”. And that’s true.

We live in an age of rapid change (and by “age” I mean post the plague “Black Death” in the late 1340s). So many things are being invented daily. Talking about the past gets weird. Even for someone like me who mostly tries to live unplugged, without smart phone or TV, even still every day is affected by technology and new inventions.

Obviously, research regarding technological unemployment is as vital today as further refinement or production of labor-saving and comfort-giving devices.