Civilization Axis

Creation of the World Wide Web

1989 CE

Tim Berners-Lee proposes the information management system (WWW).

Historical Context

In the late 1980s, CERN (Geneva) suffered from incompatibility between international researchers' computers. The internet (the physical network) existed, but no universal interface linked information.

The Event

In 1989, British physicist Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system. In 1990, he developed the three pillars of the Web: URL (address), HTTP (protocol), and HTML (language), and launched the first website.

Key Figures

Tim Berners-Lee (inventor), Robert Cailliau (Belgian engineer who co-authored the proposal and assisted in development).

Aftermath

On April 30, 1993, CERN placed the Web's code into the public domain, free forever. This triggered the greatest communication revolution since the printing press.

Legacy & Culture

The Web transformed every aspect of human life: economy, politics, social relations. It is the fundamental infrastructure of globalization and the digital age.

Historiography

Technology historians celebrate CERN's altruistic decision not to patent the Web; otherwise, it would have fragmented into competing private networks, altering modern history.