World Wide Web Day

Author JL Huffman
3 min readAug 1, 2022
World Wide Web (WWW)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University developed internal sharing systems; however, the WWW proposal, “an idea of linked information systems,” was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research, a large particle physics laboratory in Geneva Switzerland). He worked with Belgian Robert Cailliau, a computer scientist & info engineer. Their idea was for physicists of different facilities to be able to share data via hyperlinks; the concept was not initially meant for the public.

Berners-Lee

Berners-Lee used a NeXT computer, an early Steve Jobs product, to write the first web browser. This computer served as the first web browser.

To facilitate this process, Berners-Lee and Cailliau created:

(1) HTML (HyperText Markup Language) — the web formatting language

HTML

(2) URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) is a unique “address” used to identify each resource on the web, i.e., common name URL

URL

(3) HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) released in 1992 (allows retrieval of linked resources across the web)

HTTP

First photo upload by Berners-Lee in1992 parody pop band Les Horribles Cernettes founded by CERN employees.

First Uploaded Photo

In March 1992, librarian Jean Armour Polly coined the term “Surfing the Internet” in an article she published. Now we surf so long, and far we end up down the internet “rabbit hole.”

Surfing the Internet

In March 1992, librarian Jean Armour Polly coined the term “Surfing the Internet” in an article she published. Now we surf so long and far we end up down the internet “rabbit hole”.

The first public web browser was MOSAIC.

Mosaic

The first search engine was “Archie.” It used FTP archive indexing that enabled specific file locations.

Archie

Shortly after that, in January 1994, Yahoo Directory began, and by 1995 the first popular search engine was Yahoo Search. Now there are many search engines from which to choose.

Yahoo

Also, in 1994, InternetWorks launched allowing people to open tabs in the browser window. Amazon & eBay launched in 1995, and in 1996 Internet Explorer was integrated into the Windows computer system.

Today there are 1.7 billion websites and over 4.5 billion people online. And here we are on the world wide web reading this article.

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Author JL Huffman

I’m a retired Trauma surgeon/ICU doctor, a world traveler and gardener. I’ve published in the surgical literature; now I’m writing poetry, memoir & fiction.