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