The World History Highway: A Guide to Internet Resources

A Guide to Internet Resources

Dennis A. Trinkle, Scott A. Merriman

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315498959
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: History
• Categoria: World History

Complete with a CD-ROM, this specialized edition of The History Highway 3.0 guides users to the incredible amount of information on world history available on the Internet like no other resource. It covers thousands of sites, and the CD-ROM features the entire contents as PDF files with live links, so that users can put the disk into their computers, go online, and click directly to the sites. In addition, the best sites for researchers of all types are highlighted as "Editor's Choice, " and there is also helpful information about using the Internet and evaluating information in an online environment.

Part I
Getting Started

Chapter 1
The Basics

History of the Internet

Since this book is directed at those interested in history, it seems sensible to begin with a brief history of the Internet itself. The story of the Internet’s origins is as varied, complex, and fascinating as the information the Net contains. Ironically, the Net began as the polar opposite of the publicly accessible network it has become. It grew out of the Cold War hysteria surrounding the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, in 1957. Amidst paranoia that the United States was losing the “science race,” President Eisenhower created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense to establish an American lead in science and technology applicable to the military. After helping the United States develop and launch its own satellite by 1959, the ARPA scientists turned much of their attention to computer networking and communications. Their goal was to find a successful way of linking universities, defense contractors, and military command centers to foster research and interaction, but also to sustain vital communications in case of nuclear attack. The network project was formally launched in 1969 by ARPA under a grant that connected four major computers at universities in the southwestern United States—UCLA, Stanford, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. The network went online in December 1969. The age of computer networks was born.

In the early 1970s, it became clear to the initial developers of the ARPANET that the system was already stretching past its Cold War origins. Non-military research institutions were developing competing networks of communication, more and more users were going online, and new languages were being introduced all of which made communication difficult or impossible between networks. To resolve this problem, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (which had replaced ARPA) launched the Internetting Project in 1973. The aim was to create a uniform communications language that would allow the hundreds of networks being formed to communicate and function as a single meganetwork. In an amazing display of scientific prowess comparable to the Apollo Program, this crucial step in the development of the Information Superhighway was accomplished in a single year when Robert Kahn and Vinton G. Cerf introduced the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). This protocol (as the rules governing a computer language are termed) made possible the connection of all the various networks and computers then in existence and set the stage for the enormous expansion of the Internet.

Over the next decade, the Department of Defense realized the significance and potential of the Internet, and non-military organizations were gradually allowed to link with the ARPANET. Shortly after that, commercial providers like CompuServe began making the Internet accessible for those not connected to a university or research institution. The potential for profiting from the Internet fueled dramatic improvements in speed and ease of use.

The most significant step toward simplicity of use came with the introduction of the World Wide Web (WWW) which allows interactive graphics and audio to be accessed through the Internet. The WWW was the brainchild of Tim Berners-Lee of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, who created a computer language called “hypertext” that made possible the interactive exchange of text and graphic images and allowed almost instantaneous connection (linking) to any item on the Internet. Berners-Lee was actually developing this revolutionary language as the Internet was expanding in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was only with the introduction of an easy-to-use Web browser (as the software for interacting with the Web is called) that the Web became widely accessible to the average person. That first browser—Mosaic—was made available to the public by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign in 1991. Three years later, Mosiac’s creator, Marc Andreessen, introduced an even more sophisticated browser that allowed the interaction of sound, text, and images—Netscape Navigator. The next year Microsoft launched a browser of its own—Internet Explorer.

Today, there are many software options for exploring the Internet, and access can be purchased through thousands of national and local service providers. One need no longer be a military researcher or work at a university to “surf the Net.” There ...