How the Web Was Born

The World Wide Web was originally developed in 1990 at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. The original idea came from a young computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee. It's now managed by The World Wide Web Consortium.

The WWW Consortium, funded by a large number of corporate members, including AT&T, Adobe Systems, Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Sun Microsystems, Inc., promotes the growth of the Web by developing technical specifications and reference software made freely available to everyone. The Consortium is run by MIT with INRIA (The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science) acting as European host, in collaboration with CERN.

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was instrumental in the development of early graphical software that harnessed the unique features of the World Wide Web. NCSA focuses on improving the productivity of researchers by providing software for scientific modeling, analysis, and visualization. The World Wide Web was an obvious way to fulfill that mission. NCSA Mosaic, one of the earliest web browsers, was distributed free to the public and led directly to the phenomenal growth of the World Wide Web.

For an exploration of this late 20th century marvel, visit A Little History of the World Wide Web.

Last update: Jan 20, 2010