5751 AM · 1991 CE · world history
The Internet and the World Wide Web
The first website goes live at CERN, and a scientists' network becomes a common space.
The network existed since 1969, but few could use it. Tim Berners-Lee combines three simple ideas—addresses, a markup language and a transfer protocol—and in August 1991 publishes the first public website. The technology is released free of charge, and within a decade hundreds of millions are online.
Sources
Documents of the period
- documents and chronicles of the period — Berners-Lee’s proposal (1989) and the first public website (August 1991)
Scholarship
- general histories of the region — the technology released into the public domain and the growth of the web to billions of users
Basis: documents and evidence.