The father of the world’s first website was physicist Tim Berners-Lee, who, as an employee of the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN in Geneva, proposed the idea of transmitting data via hypertext using the global Internet.
The father of the world’s first website was physicist Tim Berners-Lee, who, as an employee of the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN in Geneva, proposed the use of hypertext to transfer data via the global Internet. It happened in March 1989, and in 1990 the scientist developed the first website with the address info.cern.ch. It contained a detailed description of the WWW (World Wide Web) technology, which was completely new at the time. It was based on the principle of URL Internet addressing, the HTTP information transfer protocol. It was also based on the special hypertext markup language HTML.
Long before the first website appeared, its creator developed a special Enquire. This happened in 1980 with the aim of establishing a single information space consisting of the Internet, user computers, and hypertext. Information storage was made possible by the principle of random associations. At the same time, hypertext allowed not only to view information on web pages, but also to connect the latter with each other through links, which provided easy and quick access to data. To demonstrate the new technology, Tip Berners-Lee invited his staff at CERN to post hypertext files linked by hyperlinks. In doing so, employees gained access not only to the news capabilities of the Global Network, but also to internal document search.
At that time, info.cern.ch was the very first web server based on NeXT PCs. Operating at the CERN laboratory, it was proudly named the world’s first website. The first web page contained information about the project of the first WWW Internet browser, technical features of creating other web pages, and information about hypertext. It also contained detailed explanations on how to search for information on the Internet, described the principles of installing browsers and servers and how to work with them. The world’s first site became a full-fledged Internet catalog, where Berners-Lee later published a list of links to new sites.
Starting in 1991, web servers began to spread to other European institutions, and soon overseas colleagues decided to join in and take advantage of the scientific development – a server appeared at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center SLAC in the United States. By the end of 1992, there were only 26 known web servers in the world, but in October 1993, this number increased to 200.
It is interesting to know that the famous NeXT PC, which is an important part of Internet history and was used by Tim Berners-Lee, was presented at CERN at the Microcosm exhibition as the world’s first web server, web editor and hypermedia browser.
The now widely used WWW standard was recognized and approved by CERN in Geneva in May 1991. At the same time, the creator of the world’s first website, Tim Berners-Lee, received the unspoken but honorable title of “father” of key web technologies: URI/URL, HTTP, HTML.
It is worth noting that despite the late discovery of the Internet, its theoretical basis was laid down several decades earlier. As early as the 1940s, scientist Vannevar Bush proposed hypotheses about the use of technical devices to expand the capabilities of human memory and index all the data collected by mankind for their quick retrieval. In addition, the theory of hypertext was first put forward by Doug Engelbart and Theodore Nelson, who presented the technology in the form of a “branching” text that offered users several options for material. In turn, Nelson began developing the Xanadu hypertext system, but never finished it. Dreaming of introducing cross-referencing into all existing texts in the world, the scientist was going to create a program for storing textual data and searching through it using “windows” and interconnections.
Now Berners-Lee is the head of his own World Wide Web Consortium, founded by the scientist. The company specializes in the development and implementation of new Internet standards.