Web Birthday

The internet as we know it has profoundly changed all of our lives, but many forget how young it is and how quickly it evolved. The web, or "world wide web" turns 27 years old on December 20. On that date in 1990, British engineer and scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who once made a computer out of an old television set, launched the world's first website, running on a NeXT computer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland.

On 30 April 1993 CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain. CERN made the next release available with an open license, as a way to maximize its dissemination. Making the software required to run a web server freely available, along with a basic browser, and a library of code, the web quickly flourished to what it is today.


Incidentally, the web neutrality act that was overturned yesterday was just put in place during 2015. Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, etc., grew and flourished before the government took over the web and the vote to keep the government out of it will not be the end of the world as some pundits will have us believe. Evidence of government control can be found in many other areas, such as post office, student loans, higher education, taxes, healthcare, banking, and more. The internet will not end because the government decided to not be in charge of it.