How it all began: a brief history of the Internet

Abstract

When an article on the history of the Internet was first suggested, our reaction was, “But doesn’t everyone already know how it started?” Having lived the experience “or, perhaps more aptly, having survived it”, we had become like veterans of any major event who assume that certain facts will always be maintained in the collective memory. However, we ourselves ‐ from the US and Spain, respectively ‐ have noted with incredulity the mistaken answers given by members of the younger generations among our compatriots to such questions as: “In what Southeast Asian country did the US fight a war?” or “Who was Francisco Franco?”. While for some, the answers are burnt into the cerebral circuitry, the younger respondents treat the questions as so many Trivial Pursuit challenges, on the same par as “What team did Brazil beat in the 1962 World Cup?” or “What was the name of the boy actor who played Timmy in the original Lassie series?”.

Citation

Keefer, A. and Baiget, T. (2001), "How it all began: a brief history of the Internet", VINE, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 90-95. https://doi.org/10.1108/03055720010804221