May 17 is the Internet's Birthday: the History of the World Wide Web

Every year on May 17, Russia and other countries celebrate the Birthday of the Internet, a celebration of the global network, without which it is difficult to imagine modern life. In 2025, it falls on a Saturday. Read about the history and traditions of the celebration in the Izvestia article.

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There are several holiday dates connected to the Internet at once. Thus, on April 4, International Internet Day is celebrated, dedicated to the day of memory of St. Isidore of Seville, the author of the world's first encyclopedia "Etymology" (written around 560-636). In 2003, Pope John Paul II recognized him as the patron saint of computers, users, and the Internet. The head of the Catholic Church explained his decision by saying that the global Network is a huge treasure trove of human knowledge, the same as "Etymology", which covered all fields of science of its time.

Russia has its own holidays in honor of the Network. On April 7, our country celebrates the Birthday of the Runet, dedicated to the registration of a national domain.RU in 1994. Another Internet Day is celebrated in Russia on September 30.

The Internet's birthday on May 17th is associated with the advent of the World Wide Web. On this day in 1991, the WWW (World Wide Web) standard was officially approved, which became the basis of the modern global network. By that time, the first prototypes of the Internet were already working, specialists could exchange information and send e-mails to each other, but data transmission was severely limited.

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Scientists from the Laboratory of High Energy Physics of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have found a solution to this problem. In 1989, developers Tim Berners Lee and Robert Cayo created the World Wide Web, a system that allows you to quickly access any file on the Internet through special identifiers — URLs. The information in it is stored in the form of hypertext, and documents created in this format are called "web pages".

Initially, the World Wide Web was used only to automate data exchange between universities around the world. However, in 1991, it became available to all users.

A brief history of the Internet

Work on the creation of the Internet began in the 1960s. One of the first global network theorists was Leonard Kleinrock, who created the mathematical theory of packet switching. It consists in the fact that it is more efficient to transfer data inside a computer network not as a single array, but in the form of small blocks (packets), which can also be sent to the recipient by different routes. The idea was developed by Joseph Licklider in his work The Galactic Network.

The research of these scientists was very useful, since at that time the US Department of Defense began to create a new information transmission system inside a computer network. Its development was entrusted to the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and several educational institutions: the University of California, Stanford Research Center, the University of Utah and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

As part of the project, the first analogue of the Internet appeared — the ARPANET computer network (English: Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), which united all scientific institutions involved in its creation in 1969. In the same year, the first communication session between the University of California and the Stanford Center took place. Scientists managed to transmit the message "LO" over a distance of 640 km. It was assumed that the word "LOGIN" would reach the recipients, but the connection was interrupted in the middle. Nevertheless, the session was deemed successful.

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In 1971, a service for sending e-mail appeared, and two years later, thanks to the transatlantic cable, ARPANET was launched in Europe. In 1983, the TCP/IP protocol appeared, which is still responsible for the correct transmission of data. Thanks to them, users connected to different networks were able to communicate with each other.

In August 1991, the first website dedicated to the World Wide Web project appeared on the Internet. It works to this day and is located at the link info.cern.ch . If desired, you can install the world's first Mosaic web browser, launched in 1993.

In Russia, the Internet started working in the 1980s. At that time, it was provided only to scientists for communication with foreign universities and educational centers. In 1990, the official domain of the Soviet Union was registered.SU (from Soviet Union). In 1994, it was replaced by the domain of the Russian Federation — .RU.

Earlier, Izvestia reported on the history and traditions of Radio Day celebrations.