<P> Berners - Lee wrote a proposal on March 13, 1989 for "a large hypertext database with typed links". Although the proposal attracted little interest, Berners - Lee was encouraged by his boss, Mike Sendall, to begin implementing his system on a newly acquired NeXT workstation . He considered several names, including Information Mesh, The Information Mine or Mine of Information, but settled on World Wide Web . </P> <P> Berners - Lee found an enthusiastic supporter in Robert Cailliau . Berners - Lee and Cailliau pitched Berners - Lee's ideas to the European Conference on Hypertext Technology in September 1990, but found no vendors who could appreciate his vision of marrying hypertext with the Internet . </P> <P> By Christmas 1990, Berners - Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web: the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 0.9, the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the first Web browser (named WorldWideWeb, which was also a Web editor), the first HTTP server software (later known as CERN httpd), the first web server (http://info.cern.ch), and the first Web pages that described the project itself . The browser could access Usenet newsgroups and FTP files as well . However, it could run only on the NeXT; Nicola Pellow therefore created a simple text browser, called the Line Mode Browser, that could run on almost any computer . To encourage use within CERN, Bernd Pollermann put the CERN telephone directory on the web--previously users had to log onto the mainframe in order to look up phone numbers . </P> <P> While inventing and working on setting up the Web, Berners - Lee spent most of his working hours in Building 31 (second floor) at CERN (46 ° 13 ′ 57" N 6 ° 02 ′ 42" E ﻿ / ﻿ 46.2325 ° N 6.0450 ° E ﻿ / 46.2325; 6.0450 ﻿ (CERN Building 31, Birthplace of the World Wide Web)), but also at his two homes, one in France, one in Switzerland . In January 1991 the first Web servers outside CERN itself were switched on . </P>

When was the world wide web first used