History of the Internet

The Internet actually began in the early 1970's as a network called ARPAnet. It was originally designed and used by the U.S. Defense Department. The world was in a time of nuclear buildup. The U.S. was concerned that, if a few strategic locations were hit in an initial attack, the defenses of the U.S. would become inoperable. ARPAnet allowed the defenses of an entire country to be controlled from almost anywhere.

In the early 1980's several research institutions connected to ARPAnet. A few years later, the National Science Foundation built five supercomputer centres and connected them with their own network called NSFnet. Soon, government and educational institutions begin to connect to NSFnet.

By the mid 90's, just about anybody can get on to the Internet. Home users are purchasing services from ISP's, business's are putting on their own home pages and selling their products on line, and people are communicating around the world in seconds without having to play telephone tag.

The unfortunate and undesirable side of the Internet is that there is a large amount of material on the Internet that many people find offensive or inappropriate. For this reason, children should be supervised while using the Internet.
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