The Birth of the Internet

Dan Snow's History Hit

In the last 30 years, the internet has utterly changed the world in which we live and is now as vital as electricity in our daily lives. August 6, 1991, is the date given when the first website went live. Published by Tim Berners Lee at CERN it was a moment that would change the world but, as you'll hear in this podcast, that date is in fact not true. To explain what really happened and explore the history of the world wide web, how it works and the vitally important geopolitical issues that surround it Dan is joined by Dame Wendy Hall. Wendy is Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton and has recently published Four Internets: Data, Geopolitics, and the Governance of Cyberspace. Wendy was very much involved in the 1990s as the web was being created and knows the pioneers who launched this groundbreaking technology so is the perfect guest to help remember the birth of the internet.