1989 - day 0

The Birth of WWW

Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau proposed a 'hypertext' system starting the modern Internet. Berners-Lee invented the Web while at CERN, he developed HTML, HTTP and URIs which have been further refined and form the basis of the modern internet.

1991 - day 919

Release of Linux

Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds, which is the basis for Android and Chrome OS. Linus was also responsible for developing Git, a distributed revision control system. He is a vocal advocate for Open Source software.

1993 - day 1549

First Microsoft Windows browser released

Cello was the first Microsoft Windows browser released and was used at Cornell Law School as Windows access was more widespread amongst lawyers than Unix. As hated as IE? Who knows!

1993 - day 1635

W3 Catalog

One of the earliest web search engines was put online.

1993 - day 1685

First Livestream

A coffee pot at the University of Cambridge was the subject of the world's first livestream.

1993 - day 1657

Doctor Fun

This web comic was created by David Farley and was one of the first on the world wide web.

1994 - day 1978

The first ecommerce site & transaction

This is a contended fact but NetMarket claims to have conducted the first online sale for a Sting CD for the grand total of $12.48 plus postage and packaging.

1994

The first banner ad!

This isn't the first banner ad, but it does help the site!

1995 - day 2181

Yahoo incorporated

Believe it or not Yahoo were one of the pioneers of the early internet.

1995 - day 2372

WinPlay3 release

With the release of the first real-time software MP3 player, many people were able to encode and play back MP3s on their PCs.

1996 - day 2671

Hotmail goes live

Hotmail was bought by Microsoft a year after launch and is now known as Outlook.

1996 - day 2713

First mobile phone with internet access

The phone was large and heavy but the first that could access the internet.

1998 - day 3470

Google goes live

Now a household name, since incorporation Google has had rapid growth offering a range of services including email, social networking, cloud storage, mapping and video sharing. They lead development on the Android mobile operating system and Google Chrome. They have recently made rapid developments and innovations in hardware.

1999 - day 3713

First major online leak

One of the first major online leak scandals happened when the name of British intelligence agents appeared on an American website -pre Wikileaks!

1999 - day 3946

Millennium Bug

The Y2K bug was something that could’ve caused problems with dates beyond 31st December 1999, as computers often dealt with the last two numbers in a year, making 1900 the “same” as 2000. Very few problems were ever reported and despite my Father’s panic, our home PC was fine.

2001 - day 4608

First iPod released

Thus began Apple’s domination.

2004 - day 5442

Facebook launches

Facebook first launched as The Facebook for Harvard University students.

2005 - day 5886

The first YouTube video

Uploaded by cofounder Jawed Karim. It was a video of of himself at the San Diego Zoo called "Me at the zoo".

2006 - day 6128

Twitter founded

Quite often the source of breaking news the world over.

2010 - day 7692

First iPad launched

Although not the first tablet, it's the ubiquitous term for tablet devices.

2012 - day 8685

First video with 1 billion views on YouTube

South Korean superstar Psy was the first to reach 1 billion views with the viral hit Gangnam Style.

2016 - day 10035

TikTok launched

A new social media platform for a new generation.

2021 - day 11884

NOW

Something we left out? Something happened that you think we should include? Contact us!