Today the Internet turns 40. Before we get into the details of all that this wondrous creation has brought us, let's look back to where it all began.
Around forty years ago, UCLA Professor Leonard Kleinrock and his colleagues were working on a project funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a program of the U.S. Department of Defense. The project was called ARPANET, and it was a network comprised of four nodes with terminals in UCLA, Stanford, the University of California-Santa Barbara and the University of Utah.
On October 29, 1969, a message was successfully sent from the terminal in UCLA to the terminal in Stanford. Although the system initially crashed, another attempt was successful and here we are, forty years later, with our bottomless pit o' porn and Viagra that is the World Wide Web. Group hug!
So, let's raise a glass to the Internet. You've grown from that oh-so-primitive network to something that can pay my bills, feed my cat, buy my shoes and feed all of my tech-related habits. Is there anything it can't do?
What impact has the Internet had on your life? Let us know in the comments below!
Now, where should I send this horrible, singing, ecard ...
