The Internet, the Web, and How They Work
1.1 A Brief History: From ARPANET to Your Smartphone
The story of the internet is one of the most remarkable in human history. It began not as a consumer product, but as a defence research project.
|
Year |
Event |
Why It Matters |
|
1969 |
ARPANET — the first network connecting 4 US universities |
The direct ancestor of today's internet |
|
1971 |
First email sent by Ray Tomlinson |
Communication would never be the same |
|
1983 |
TCP/IP becomes the standard protocol suite |
The 'language' all internet devices still use today |
|
1991 |
Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web at CERN |
Gave us websites, links, and browsers |
|
1993 |
Mosaic — the first graphical web browser released |
Made the web accessible to non-programmers |
|
1995 |
Internet reaches Nigeria — first Nigerian ISPs launch |
Nigeria joins the global digital community |
|
1998 |
Google founded |
Changed how we find information forever |
|
2004 |
Facebook launched |
Social media transforms how humans connect |
|
2007 |
iPhone launched |
Mobile web becomes dominant globally |
|
2010 |
Jumia (Africa Internet Group) founded in Lagos |
Nigeria's e-commerce era begins |
|
2011 |
Flutterwave concept emerges (launched 2016) |
Nigerian fintech takes off — built on web tech |
|
2023 |
Nigeria has 100M+ internet users |
Web tech shapes every aspect of Nigerian life |