The year is 1957 and the USSR has just launched the first artificial earth satellite. In response America launches the Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense (DOD) to create America’s lead in science and technology. The Internet had its humble beginnings here, within ARPA’s many projects.
The Internet has become one of the key symbols of today’s pop culture: everything has a “dot com” address; people do not say “call me,” but instead its
“I’ll E-mail you;” and the new word on the stock market is “E-business.” The
Internet has not always been such a key figure in American life; in fact it was mostly unheard of until recently.
The theory for the Internet first started being published in 1961 with
Leonard Kleinrock’s document on packet-switching theory, “Information Flow in
Large Communication Net.” This document presented the theory behind the first problem of the Internet, and how to solve it1. The problem was this: when a large document is sent then pieces of it become lost in transfer and the entire document has to be resent, but then different pieces are missing from the new copy of the document. This is a major problem and the obvious solution is to
“chop” the information up into smaller pieces and then transmit the smaller pieces2. Then another problem was realized, how does the computer know where to put these small bits of information? The solution to that was what has come to be known as packet-switching (PS). In PS, the entire document is sent in a bunch of tiny “packets,” these packets contain the information of the document “wrapped” in its placement on the page. The receiving computer then sends a message back to the transmitting computer telling it which packets were corrupted or missing and the transmitting computer then re-sends the lost information3. The next problem that the Internet faced was first discovered at the
ARPA’s networking project, ARPAnet. Since it was militarily connected, the leaders of ARPAnet wanted a way that information could be moved between two computers without requiring a direct connection in case the direct link between two computers failed (was destroyed). The way that the ARPAnet project dealt with this was by having the network bounce the information around without it taking a direct path...
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... but enough to crash the Internet and land Mr. Morris
(Jr.) a hefty fine and prison time. Earlier in that year, Internet Relay Chat was developed; something that has become one of the key factors in Internet usage today8. In the ten years since the Morris Worm the Internet has gone mainstream.
After the ARPAnet ceased, the Internet had an explosion in usage and has become the giant that Americans know today. It has transformed from its humble beginnings, when it crashed on the first attempted remote LOGIN, into an economy driving, pop culture staple. Few people have heard of men such as
Leonard Kleinrock, but none can say he has not contributed to America today.
So, when you think about the Cold War, think about Sputnik and the Internet it created. Bibiography
Hafner, Katie; Lyon, Matthew. Where Wizards Stay up Late: The Origins of the
Internet. Touchstone Books; 1998.
Kristula, David. “The History of the Internet.”
Network Solutions, Inc. “What is the History of the Internet?.”
Segaller, Stephen. Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet. TV Books Inc.;
1999
Sterling, Bruce. “A Brief History of the Internet.”
The Soviet’s were responsible for putting man on the moon, rovers on Mars, and launching the Hubble Space Telescope. Indeed, it was the United States’ foes that drove the U.S. to accomplish perhaps the greatest feats of the twentieth century. Following the defeat of Germany and Japan in World War II, tensions between former allies, the United States and the Soviet Union, began to grow. In the following decades, the two superpowers would duke it out in competitions and tremendous shows of nationalism. They formed unmatchable rivalries in politics, economics, sciences, and sports. These rivalries would become clear when two countries competed in the space race, a competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union concerning achievements in the field of space exploration. The Soviet’s took the early lead as they put the first satellite, Sputnik 1, into space. The launch of Sputnik 1 established a sense of fear into the American Public, resulting in the creation of NASA in the late 1950’s which opened the door for space exploration today and for future generations.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Gregory, Ross. A. Cold War America: 1946 to 1990. New York, NY: Facts on File, 2003. McQuaid, Kim.
The Americans took a much more urgent approach after seeing what the U.S.S.R. was truly capable of. The United States would respond with various satellites including those of the Explorer Series and more. However, the Soviet Union would again one-up the United States, and all of their now seemingly feeble satellite launches, by putting the first man into outer space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961. Now the quest gained an even more competitive drive and the United States soon put Alan B. Shepard into space twenty-three days later. The Space Race was truly a trek for the firsts of history, essentially just exterrestrial one-ups throughout an extended period of time. That very same year, John F. Kennedy founded NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, just for that purpose, to explore the world beyond their own, while maintaining the central aim, to beat the Soviets outright. JFK was a leading power in this race, and “by giving NASA programs top priority, his actions essentially played on American fears of communism and implicitly inferred that the Eisenhower administration had not done enough to meet the Sputnik challenge. Too many Americans were beginning to feel a need to vindicate the ‘long-standing communist boast that theirs was the superior system for galvanizing human productivity’” (Koman 43). Winning this space race was way more than just an extraterrestrial victory, it would hopefully squander the communists’ hopes and assert true American dominance. The United States sought to eliminate any presumption of communist superiority and did so in the near future by winning this Cold War space race, thanks to the execution of a truly unimaginable
Of course the internet (in some respects) is much like the steam engine and mass transit in the way it facilitates more commerce, more social interaction between Americans, greater senses of common identity. These forms of technology will definitely continue to change the social and cultural situation of the American people, compounding the effects of the industrial revolution in America’s history; i.e. compounding the social, cultural, economic, technological, as well as geographical changes accompanying technology. However, the variety of ways in which this
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When the internet was invented, it was a great way of communication in order to keep famili...
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The history of the internet shows that the internet is not a new medium. The internet was initially created in the 1960's to as a way for the United States to stay connected in case of a nuclear fallout due to the possible consequences of the Cold War. F...
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The Internet has received a great deal of attention in the media lately due to its tremendous
The Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The Internet enables communication and transmission of data between computers at different locations. The Internet is a computer application that connects tens of thousands of interconnected computer networks that include 1.7 million host computers around the world. The basis of connecting all these computers together is by the use of ordinary telephone wires. Users are then directly joined to other computer users at there own will for a small connection fee per month. The connection conveniently includes unlimited access to over a million web sites twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There are many reasons why the Internet is important these reasons include: The net adapts to damage and error, data travels at 2/3 the speed of light on copper and fiber, the internet provides the same functionality to everyone, the net is the fastest growing technology ever, the net promotes freedom of speech, the net is digital, and can correct errors. Connecting to the Internet cost the taxpayer little or nothing, since each node was independent, and had to handle its own financing and its own technical requirements.
In our society, there has been a revolution which competes that of the industrial revolution. It is called technological revolution. At the top of the technological revolution is what we call, the Internet. In the following report we will be discussing about what the internet is about in general and how it might be in the future, why it is necessary in our everyday lives, and why has it become so important to everyone (i.e. companies, individuals ).
Internet as part of the history is the most important invention around the world which connects people thru phones, satellites and cables. People all over the world have access to it as it is everyday usage, and internet becomes globally real and in demand. To mention here, the usage for permits technically for travelling or getting tickets are electronically through internet, paying bills, shopping thru nets without going out (just browsing), playing games, and mostly the merit of possibly downloading music and movies in no time (just a click).