A Brief History of the Internets

A Brief History of the Internets

1958 – US launches the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to research new military technology.

1969 – ARPA establishes the first recorded host-to-host connection.

1976 – Release of Comet, the first commercial email provider.

1990 – Creation of the World Wide Web.

1994 – Release of Netscape Navigator.

1995 – Release of Internet  Explorer. First browser war begins.

1998 – Incorporation of Google.

1999 – The term “WIFI” first used commercially. Al Gore unsuccessfully claims to have created the internet.

2000 – U.S. Presidential candidate George W. Bush first pluralizes the word “Internets” in an election debate

2004 – Launch of Facebook.

2006 – Founding of Reddit. Google buys YouTube and gains a near monopoly on the online video market.

2013 – Suicide of Reddit co-founder Aaron Schwartz, largely considered the first e-martyr.

2014 – The United Nations officially declares Internet Explorer as being in violation of the Geneva Convention. Independently, unknown hackers are successful in rendering Firefox, Opera, and Safari as inoperable, giving Google Chrome a monopoly of all browsers. End of the browser wars.

2016 – Opening of the International Meme Museum in Sydney, Australia.

2017 – Anika Kapur’s photo reaches 1 billion likes, and her medical team is finally able to develop a cure to her leukemia. Those who fail to reach this amount are unable to obtain the cure. More than half of all commerce is now carried out online.

2019 – Bubastism (the worship of cats) first officially recognized as a religion in Brazil.

2021 – Meeting of the 1^st International Internets Convention (IIC). In their first official act, they instate a $500 fee for those found guilty of reposting.

2022 – Creation of the Ragnarok Virus, which is used to carry out the first online assassination.

2023 – In the highly controversial Apple v. Microsoft case, the US Supreme Court accepts Apple’s claim as the supreme owners of the Internets. Use of non-Apple-owned software is made punishable by 6-10 years in prison in the United States, beginning the Online Dark Age. Most major corporations transfer to Europe, Japan, or South Korea.

2029 – Repeal of Apple v. Microsoft. Apple board members are forced to go underground and delete their Facebook profiles for their own protection.

2031 – Yahoo, Disney-ABC, and Twitter form an alliance and declare war on Facebook. The Online War begins.

2032 – Battle of Pinterest. 1.2 million casualties. United States government admits it is powerless to stop the conflict.

2037 – Battle of Imgur. Bloodiest battle in human history. 4.6 million dead, 6.2 million wounded, and 141.9 million left without WIFI. Masses of e-refugees turn in desperation to dial-up for the first time in decades.

2038 – Reddit unexpectedly joins the conflict as an ally of Facebook and completely wipes out Twitter in just under 17 minutes.

2039 – Yahoo and Disney-ABC surrender without conditions. The signing of the “All your base are belong to us” treaty effectively ends the Online War.

2041 – Merger between Google, Facebook, and Reddit finalized. An estimated 97.8% of webpages are now directly controlled be the new company, known as Googlit Inc.

2042 – Political nations, with the exception of North Korea, Mozambique, and Switzerland, shut down. Googlit assumes political control over the world.

2045 – After a series of global riots, the Googlit Constitution is ratified by reaching 1.5 billion likes. Anonymous officially recognized as a law enforcement agency.

2048 – More than 50% of the world now identifies as Bubastist. Cats are granted full legal protection in most civilized countries.

2052 – Completion of the Worldwide Automated Delivery Service (WADS), which promises that 95% of all jobs will be conducted online from within the home in less than ten years.

2057 – 5 years short of the deadline, the Great Siri Scandal completely undermines WADS and costs millions of people their jobs. Mobs burn down the Steve Jobs Museum of Technology in protest. The apple becomes an international archetype equated with hubris.

2059 – After a long transition, likes officially replace dollars as the worldwide currency.

2061 – The DZF-B1980-00101 (commonly known as “the Zuck”) marks the most advanced artificial intelligence of the age is built.

2063 – The Zuck’s A.I. processor begins behaving erratically, culminating in the Great Internets Shutdown. The World Wide Web is shut down. More than 40 million people lose their lives in various accidents during the first day offline alone, and the government immediately struggles to feed its people. Silence Day is now observed on August 27 every year in memory of this tragedy.

2066 – A group of Bubastist monks, led by Chief Nyan VII, finally breach the Zuck’s chamber and manage to deactivate it. Googlit’s top engineers manage to rebuild the Internets’ interface, but nearly all lost data is irretrievable. Estimates vary about the effects of the Great Internets Shutdown, but it is estimated to have caused anywhere between 900 million to 1.2 billion deaths, most by starvation.

2068 – Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” approved as the new worldwide national anthem

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