Web History

• 2007 - The HTML WG works out HTML5 based on Web Applications 1.0 specification - mostly backwards compatible, form validation, video, features like flash and JavaScript, better suitable for writing dynamic applications, clearly defined parsing algorithm creating same DOM from same markup.

• 2004 - WHATWG creates the Web Applications 1.0 specification. It is backwards compatible.

• 2003 -The CSS Zen Garden by Dave Shea is truly illustrating that the entire design can change just by changing the style of the page; the content could remain identical.

• 2002 - 2003 - Wired magazine and ESPN become field leaders in supporting web standards and new techniques. WaSP influences Netscape (this leads to Firefox) and Macromedia (Dreamweaver) to become more compliant.

• 2000 - CSS 3 specification, has over 40 modules.

• 2000 - Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 5 for Mac.

• 2000 - XHTML 1.0 & 2.0 released, but it didn't work properly in Internet Explorer. It is not backwards compatible.

• 1999 - CSS 2  specification.

• 1998 - The WaSP (Web Standards Project) advertises with roadblocks and ridicules misbehaving W3C members. Volunteers rom member companies work on standards. 7 members formed the CSS Samurai and identify top 10 problems.

• 1998 - The W3C declares XML and XHTML as future standard.

• 1995 - Browser wars start between Netscape, Microsoft, Opera etc. to attract developers and force to develop different websites or block others in using their sites.

• 1995-8 - Spyglass Inc. (the commercial arm of NCSA) licenses their Mosaic technology to Microsoft to form the basis of Internet Explorer 1.0.

• 1994-12 - Netscape Communications Corporation (Mosaic Communications) release Netscape Navigator 1.0 (see also AOL and Mozilla Firefox).

• 1994 - The number of available web browsers increase dramatically. Telenor creates the first version of the Opera browser.

• 1994 - The W3C (Word Wide Web Consortium) founded by Tim Berners-Lee, standardizes the protocols and technologies used to build the web. New specifications (called recommendations) are HTML 4.01 - PNG images - CSS 1 & 2 (Cascading Style Sheets).

• 1993-12 - NCSA releases a combined web browser and Gopher client, called Mosaic. Originally only available on Unix machines and in source code form, Mosaic provids a new version with installers for both Mac and Windows.

• 1993-4-30 - CERN releases the source code of www (WorldWideWeb) into the public domain, so anyone can use or build upon the software without charge.

• 1993 - Gopher starts to charge licensing fees - organizations look for alternatives.

• 1991 - Tim Berner-Lee's information management system at CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) allows the reader to quickly jump from document to document. He had created a server for publishing this style of document (called hypertext, later HTML) as well as a program for reading them, which he had called www (WorldWideWeb). It will be able to replace Gopher soon.

• 1990 - The information retrieval system "Gopher" provides a method of delivering menus of links to files, computer resources and other menus and uses the Internet to fetch menus from other systems.

• 1982 - The ARPANET connections outside of the US are converted to use the new TCP/IP protocol. The Internet as we know it is created.

• 1977 - The first TCP/IP demonstration, created by Robert Kahn, later together with Vinton Cerf. It is a mask for network protocols, "Internet Transmission Control Program" (becomes later the TCP/IP), moves the responsibility of maintaining transmission integrity to the host computer and enables mostly all networks joining together.

• 1969 - X.25 is created by the International Telecommunication Union. It forms the basis of the first private-like networks Janet (UK) and CompuServe (US).

• 1969 - Presentation of the first four-computer network via "packet switching" using small chunks (packets). The principle is still used today to run the Internet.

• 1967 - The first Plan for ARPANET is presented.

• 1960 - Joseph Licklider writes an article "Man-Computer Symbiosis" about the idea of networked computers called ARPANET.

• 1957 - The Soviet Union launches their first satellite Sputnik 1 and shockes the world. The US Department of Defense ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) creates as a result the Internet to develop advanced ideas and technologies.

The history of the Web at webplatform.org

csszengarden.com

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