1991: Introduction of the World Wide Web – WWW
From specialised tool to mass medium
In the East-West conflict (Cold War), what came between the two power blocs – the US and the Soviet Union – was not only a major arms race, but also a race for space. In 1957, when the Soviet Union became the first country in the world to launch a satellite into space, intense reactions were triggered in the US (Sputnik Crisis). As a result, in 1958 the US government set up a research department, The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), in the Department of Defense. Its task was to coordinate scientific and military research projects centrally in order to catch up with the Soviet Union’s research edge. Computers from various university research institutes were networked with one another, and a computer network was developed for the US military to securely and quickly transfer messages between command centres. In 1969, this resulted in the ARPANET, which, starting in 1983, used the network protocol TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), connected via submarine cable or satellite to other networks in the world. However, at that time, only specialists could use the complex networks. This changed fundamentally in 1991 when British physicist Tim Berners-Lee developed a computer program at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland) that made it possible to easily find and publish information on computer networks. Because this functioned world-wide, Berners-Lee named this first internet browser the World Wide Web.
The number of internet users increased rapidly: in 2005, one billion people were online and in 2017, already half of the world’s population (about 3.7 billion people) were using the internet. A global comparison, however, shows that a gap exists between poor and rich countries: while in North America and Europe, 88% and 80% of people have access to the internet respectively, in Africa it is only around 30%. In Austria, the first data line with a connection to the internet was established in 1990 at the University of Vienna. Today, around 89% of Austrian households have internet access.
External Resources (in German only):
Universität Wien feiert 20 Jahre Internet in Österreich (2010), https://medienportal.univie.ac.at/presse/aktuelle-pressemeldungen/detailansicht/artikel/universitaet-wien-feiert-20-jahre-internet-in-oesterreich/
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