<P> Packet switching networks such as the NPL network, ARPANET, Tymnet, Merit Network, CYCLADES, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of communications protocols . Donald Davies first demonstrated packet switching in 1967 at the National Physics Laboratory (NPL) in the UK, which became a testbed for UK research for almost two decades . The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, in which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks . </P> <P> The Internet protocol suite (TCP / IP) was developed by Robert E. Kahn and Vint Cerf in the 1970s and became the standard networking protocol on the ARPANET, incorporating concepts from the French CYCLADES project directed by Louis Pouzin . In the early 1980s the NSF funded the establishment for national supercomputing centers at several universities, and provided interconnectivity in 1986 with the NSFNET project, which also created network access to the supercomputer sites in the United States from research and education organizations . Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) began to emerge in the very late 1980s . The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990 . Limited private connections to parts of the Internet by officially commercial entities emerged in several American cities by late 1989 and 1990, and the NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995, removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic . </P> <P> In the 1980s, research at CERN in Switzerland by British computer scientist Tim Berners - Lee resulted in the World Wide Web, linking hypertext documents into an information system, accessible from any node on the network . Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has had a revolutionary impact on culture, commerce, and technology, including the rise of near - instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone calls, two - way interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums, blogs, social networking, and online shopping sites . The research and education community continues to develop and use advanced networks such as JANET in the United Kingdom and Internet2 in the United States . Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1 - Gbit / s, 10 - Gbit / s, or more . The Internet's takeover of the global communication landscape was almost instant in historical terms: it only communicated 1% of the information flowing through two - way telecommunications networks in the year 1993, already 51% by 2000, and more than 97% of the telecommunicated information by 2007 . Today the Internet continues to grow, driven by ever greater amounts of online information, commerce, entertainment, and social networking . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> Internet history timeline </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> <P> Early research and development: </P> <Ul> <Li> 1965 (1965): NPL network planning starts </Li> <Li> 1966 (1966): Merit Network founded </Li> <Li> 1966 (1966): ARPANET planning starts </Li> <Li> 1967 (1967): NPL network packet switching pilot experiment </Li> <Li> 1969 (1969): ARPANET carries its first packets </Li> <Li> 1970 (1970): Network Information Center (NIC) </Li> <Li> 1971 (1971): Tymnet packet - switched network </Li> <Li> 1972 (1972): Merit Network's packet - switched network operational </Li> <Li> 1972 (1972): Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) established </Li> <Li> 1973 (1973): CYCLADES network demonstrated </Li> <Li> 1974 (1974): Telenet packet - switched network </Li> <Li> 1976 (1976): X. 25 protocol approved </Li> <Li> 1978 (1978): Minitel introduced </Li> <Li> 1979 (1979): Internet Activities Board (IAB) </Li> <Li> 1980 (1980): USENET news using UUCP </Li> <Li> 1980 (1980): Ethernet standard introduced </Li> <Li> 1981 (1981): BITNET established </Li> </Ul> <P> Merging the networks and creating the Internet: </P> <Ul> <Li> 1981 (1981): Computer Science Network (CSNET) </Li> <Li> 1982 (1982): TCP / IP protocol suite formalized </Li> <Li> 1982 (1982): Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) </Li> <Li> 1983 (1983): Domain Name System (DNS) </Li> <Li> 1983 (1983): MILNET split off from ARPANET </Li> <Li> 1985 (1985): First . COM domain name registered </Li> <Li> 1986 (1986): NSFNET with 56 kbit / s links </Li> <Li> 1986 (1986): Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) </Li> <Li> 1987 (1987): UUNET founded </Li> <Li> 1988 (1988): NSFNET upgraded to 1.5 Mbit / s (T1) </Li> <Li> 1988 (1988): OSI Reference Model released </Li> <Li> 1988 (1988): Morris worm </Li> <Li> 1989 (1989): Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) </Li> <Li> 1989 (1989): PSINet founded, allows commercial traffic </Li> <Li> 1989 (1989): Federal Internet Exchanges (FIXes) </Li> <Li> 1990 (1990): GOSIP (without TCP / IP) </Li> <Li> 1990 (1990): ARPANET decommissioned </Li> <Li> 1990 (1990): Advanced Network and Services (ANS) </Li> <Li> 1990 (1990): UUNET / Alternet allows commercial traffic </Li> <Li> 1990 (1990): Archie search engine </Li> <Li> 1991 (1991): Wide area information server (WAIS) </Li> <Li> 1991 (1991): Gopher </Li> <Li> 1991 (1991): Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) </Li> <Li> 1991 (1991): ANS CO + RE allows commercial traffic </Li> <Li> 1991 (1991): World Wide Web (WWW) </Li> <Li> 1992 (1992): NSFNET upgraded to 45 Mbit / s (T3) </Li> <Li> 1992 (1992): Internet Society (ISOC) established </Li> <Li> 1993 (1993): Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) </Li> <Li> 1993 (1993): InterNIC established </Li> <Li> 1993 (1993): AOL added USENET access </Li> <Li> 1993 (1993): Mosaic web browser released </Li> <Li> 1994 (1994): Full text web search engines </Li> <Li> 1994 (1994): North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) established </Li> </Ul> <P> Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to the modern Internet: </P> <Ul> <Li> 1995 (1995): New Internet architecture with commercial ISPs connected at NAPs </Li> <Li> 1995 (1995): NSFNET decommissioned </Li> <Li> 1995 (1995): GOSIP updated to allow TCP / IP </Li> <Li> 1995 (1995): very high - speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) </Li> <Li> 1995 (1995): IPv6 proposed </Li> <Li> 1996 (1996): AOL changes pricing model from hourly to monthly </Li> <Li> 1998 (1998): Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) </Li> <Li> 1999 (1999): IEEE 802.11 b wireless networking </Li> <Li> 1999 (1999): Internet2 / Abilene Network </Li> <Li> 1999 (1999): vBNS+ allows broader access </Li> <Li> 2000 (2000): Dot - com bubble bursts </Li> <Li> 2001 (2001): New top - level domain names activated </Li> <Li> 2001 (2001): Code Red I, Code Red II, and Nimda worms </Li> <Li> 2003 (2003): UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) phase I </Li> </Ul> <Ul> <Li> 2003 (2003): National LambdaRail founded </Li> <Li> 2004 (2004): UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) </Li> <Li> 2005 (2005): UN WSIS phase II </Li> <Li> 2006 (2006): First meeting of the Internet Governance Forum </Li> <Li> 2010 (2010): First internationalized country code top - level domains registered </Li> <Li> 2012 (2012): ICANN begins accepting applications for new generic top - level domain names </Li> <Li> 2013 (2013): Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation </Li> <Li> 2014 (2014): NetMundial international Internet governance proposal </Li> <Li> 2016 (2016): ICANN contract with U.S. Dept. of Commerce ends, IANA oversight passes to the global Internet community on October 1st </Li> </Ul> <P> Examples of Internet services: </P> <Ul> <Li> 1989 (1989): AOL dial - up service provider, email, instant messaging, and web browser </Li> <Li> 1990 (1990): IMDb Internet movie database </Li> <Li> 1995 (1995): Amazon.com online retailer </Li> <Li> 1995 (1995): eBay online auction and shopping </Li> <Li> 1995 (1995): Craigslist classified advertisements </Li> <Li> 1996 (1996): Hotmail free web - based e-mail </Li> <Li> 1997 (1997): Babel Fish automatic translation </Li> <Li> 1998 (1998): Google Search </Li> <Li> 1998 (1998): Yahoo! Clubs (now Yahoo! Groups) </Li> <Li> 1998 (1998): PayPal Internet payment system </Li> <Li> 1999 (1999): Napster peer - to - peer file sharing </Li> <Li> 2001 (2001): BitTorrent peer - to - peer file sharing </Li> <Li> 2001 (2001): Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia </Li> <Li> 2003 (2003): LinkedIn business networking </Li> <Li> 2003 (2003): Myspace social networking site </Li> <Li> 2003 (2003): Skype Internet voice calls </Li> <Li> 2003 (2003): iTunes Store </Li> <Li> 2003 (2003): 4Chan Anonymous image - based bulletin board </Li> <Li> 2003 (2003): The Pirate Bay, torrent file host </Li> <Li> 2004 (2004): Facebook social networking site </Li> <Li> 2004 (2004): Podcast media file series </Li> <Li> 2004 (2004): Flickr image hosting </Li> <Li> 2005 (2005): YouTube video sharing </Li> <Li> 2005 (2005): Reddit link voting </Li> <Li> 2005 (2005): Google Earth virtual globe </Li> <Li> 2006 (2006): Twitter microblogging </Li> <Li> 2007 (2007): WikiLeaks anonymous news and information leaks </Li> <Li> 2007 (2007): Google Street View </Li> <Li> 2007 (2007): Kindle, e-reader and virtual bookshop </Li> <Li> 2008 (2008): Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) </Li> <Li> 2008 (2008): Dropbox cloud - based file hosting </Li> <Li> 2008 (2008): Encyclopedia of Life, a collaborative encyclopedia intended to document all living species </Li> <Li> 2008 (2008): Spotify, a DRM - based music streaming service </Li> <Li> 2009 (2009): Bing search engine </Li> <Li> 2009 (2009): Google Docs, Web - based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, form, and data storage service </Li> <Li> 2009 (2009): Kickstarter, a threshold pledge system </Li> <Li> 2009 (2009): Bitcoin, a digital currency </Li> <Li> 2010 (2010): Instagram, photo sharing and social networking </Li> <Li> 2011 (2011): Google+, social networking </Li> <Li> 2011 (2011): Snapchat, photo sharing </Li> <Li> 2012 (2012): Coursera, massive open online courses </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> </Table>

When did the internet first become available to the public