How the Internet Was Invented

Key people, projects, and organizations that helped create the Internet are described in the following sections. The first section provides a one-page summary, and the following sections are listed in roughly chronological order:

• One-Page Summary.

• Vannevar Bush -- Wrote about the visionary Memex system.

• Norbert Wiener -- Developed Cybernetics.

• Semi-Automatic Ground Environment -- Early human-computer interaction.

• Dartmouth AI Conference -- First US national conference on Artificial Intelligence.

• DARPA -- Organization that funded the ARPANET.

• Joseph Licklider -- First Director of IPO, developer of Netizen concept.

• Leonard Kleinrock -- First discoverer of packet-switching.

• RAND -- R&D organization that funded Paul Baran's network research.

• Marshall McLuhan -- Popularized the concept of a global electronic nervous system.

• National Physical Laboratories -- Led by Donald Davies, developed the Mark I network.

• Information Processing Techniques Office -- Funded the ARPANET.

• Lawrence Roberts -- The Internet System Architect.

• Interface Message Processor -- The first standard network interface.

• ARPANET -- The first Internet.

• Network Control Program -- The first Internet network protocol.

• Bob Kahn -- Initiated the design of TCP/IP.

• Vinton Cerf -- Led development of TCP/IP.

• TCP/IP -- Today's Internet network protocol.

• NSFNet -- The National Science Foundation's Internet.

• CSNET -- The university Computer Science Internet.

• EUnet -- The European researchers Internet.