World Wide Web Launched: Berners-Lee Unites the Globe
Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist at CERN in Switzerland, posted a summary of his World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup on August 6, 1991, making the technology publicly available for the first time outside CERN. He had built the first web browser, the first web server, and the first website (info.cern.ch) over the previous two years using a NeXT computer. The key innovation wasn't any single technology but the combination: HTML for formatting, URLs for addressing, and HTTP for communication. Berners-Lee deliberately chose not to patent his invention, ensuring the web remained free and open. By 1993, Mosaic's graphical browser brought the web to ordinary users, and by 1995, commercial internet traffic exceeded academic traffic for the first time.
August 6, 1991
35 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on August 6
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