MadSci Network: Computer Science
Query:

Re: What was the first website ever?

Date: Tue Jun 19 14:26:42 2001
Posted By: David Ehnebuske, Sr. Technical Staff Member, Software, IBM Corporation
Area of science: Computer Science
ID: 991951287.Cs
Message:

You asked, "What was the first website ever?" Well, that depends on your definition of "web site." It would be great if there was a nice clear-cut answer, but, like most inventions, the world wide web didn't just pop into existence all at once....It happened (and is still happening) in stages. A reasonable answer might be the site that Tim Berners-Lee put together at CERN for the development of the first Browser/Editor, called WorldWideWeb, in 1990. But people might say, no, that didn't have enough in it of what we would today call "web technology" to qualify. Others might say, no, there were earlier things that qualify like Vanevar Bush's " As We May Think" article in the July 1945 Atlantic Monthly.

But I'll stick with whatever test data Berners-Lee used in the development of the program called WorldWideWeb. Certainly by 1993, there were several sites at CERN that qualified by most people's definition. Here's a screen shot of the 1993 WorldWideWib browser/editor courtesy of the World Wide Web Consortium:

 

As you can see, it's pretty close to what we have today!

For more information I recommend you visit the World Wide Web Consortium's About the World Wide Web Consortium pages they have a lot of background information on the history of the Web, including a timeline you might find interesting.

Hope this helps!


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