Exactly 25 years ago, the world got access to one of the most revolutionary inventions of the recent times – the internet.
The World Wide Web which is an integral part of the modern age was open to the public for use on this day, August 23. Called as the World Internaut Day, August 23 is considered as internet’s birthday.
Here are some of the interesting facts you need to know about the internet and the world wide web:
- A British scientist named Tim Berners-Lee who was working at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989. However, it was open to public only after two years in 1991. CERN announced that in 1993 that internet would be free for everyone.
- The word ‘internaut’ is a portmanteau of the words ‘internet’ and ‘astronaut’ to describe the first users as the very first voyagers on the internet. It refers to a designer, operator, or technically capable person who can use the Internet.
- In 1994, there were less than 3,000 websites. The number rose to more than 1 billion in 2014.
- The first website was info.cern.ch which was hosted by CERN. Robert Calliau, a software engineer was the first person to access the web.
- The first photo uploaded on the internet was of the CERN house band named Les Horribles Cernettes. It was put up by Tim Berners-Lee.
- There are 3.4 billion internet users as of 1 July 2016. At least 40 percent of the world has access to internet.
- South Korea offers the highest average connection speed of 26.7 Mb/s while India’s average connection speed is 2.5 Mb/s. The average global connection speed is 5.7 Mb/s.
- The internet has almost one zetabyte of data.
- Search giant Google is the most popular website, followed by video streaming site YouTube and social networking major Facebook.
(Feature image source: Reuters)