The Web - History & Evolution

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Arjit Sharma
02 Mins

The internet and the World Wide Web have transformed how we communicate, work, and access information.

The Birth of the Internet and Web

  • In 1960s, The U.S. Department of Defense funded ARPANET, which devised a revolutionary method of breaking a message into packets and send independently across network called packet switching (unlike circuit switching which used to take the whole line - early telephone calls)
  • 1974: TCP/IP Protocol was developed, allowing different computers to communicate reliably.
  • 1983: ARPANET adopted TCP/IP, and this became the foundation for the modern internet.

World Wide Web

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web (WWW) to make information sharing easier.

His vision was a system where documents could be linked via hypertext (clickable connections between pages) using HTML (HyperText Markup Language). What made this possible was HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), a standardized protocol for requesting and delivering web content.

  • 1991: The first website went live at CERN, explaining the WWW project.
  • 1993: The Mosaic browser, with its graphical interface, made the web intuitive for non-technical users, sparking widespread adoption.
  • 1995: JavaScript introduced dynamic behavior, allowing interactivity like form validation or animations directly in the browser.

How Websites Load: From URL to Screen

When you type a URL like https://csprimer.in on Google/Mozilla etc , a series of step take place -

  • DNS Lookup: The browser translates the domain name into an IP address (e.g., 142.250.190.78).
  • HTTP/HTTPS Request: The browser sends an HTTP request to the server at that IP address, asking for the webpage’s resources.
  • Server Response: The server processes the request, often querying a database or running backend logic (e.g., via PHP, Python, or Node.js). It then sends back the necessary files, including HTML, CSS, JS and Media
  • Browser Rendering: The browser parses the HTML to build the DOM (Document Object Model), applies CSS for visuals, and executes JavaScript for interactivity.