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2 - The History and Evolution of the Internet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2011

Tapas Ray
Affiliation:
Department of Media Studeis, Jadavpur University
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Summary

The history of the internet and the world wide web has been comprehensively documented, appropriately enough, on a number of websites. Richard Griffiths writes that the origin of the internet can be traced to 1957. It had been designated as the International Geophysical Year dedicated to the collection of data on the upper atmosphere during a period of intense solar activity. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the USA had announced that his country wished to launch an earth-orbiting satellite as part of these activities.

With competition between the two superpowers (USA and USSR) for technological supremacy in the prevailing Cold War atmosphere, the USSR announced that it, too, hoped to launch a satellite. The Soviet Union won the race by launching Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite on 4 October 1957. Clearly, American power was not necessarily supreme any longer.

The USA responded to this challenge by setting up the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within its defence establishment. ARPA's mission was to adapt the latest technologies to military applications in order to regain and maintain American technological lead over the USSR. It was also given control of the US satellite programme until the creation of NASA in October 1958. The initial focus of ARPA's activities was therefore space, ballistic missiles and nuclear test monitoring. Another important priority was communication between its operational base and its sub-contractors through linked computers.

Type
Chapter
Information
Online Journalism
A Basic Text
, pp. 11 - 33
Publisher: Foundation Books
Print publication year: 2006

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