Inventions Of The 20th Century

These nondescript rectangles of wires and conductors look boring, but they opened up a whole new world. They're the router and modem allow cable connectivity which opened up the Internet. Unlike other inventions, the Internet has no single inventor. It got it's start more than 50 years ago as a government weapon of the Cold War. For years scientists and researchers used it to communicate and share data.  Today, well as you know, we use it for everything (including this wonderful site). 

The first internet was ARPAnet. The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency. It seems that the Russian's satellite (Sputnik) in 1957 created quite a bit of angst from the government researchers who were afraid that the satellite would help the Russians win the Cold War. 

 "In 1962, a scientist from M.I.T. and ARPA named J.C.R. Licklider proposed a solution to this problem: a “galactic network” of computers that could talk to one another." And the internet was born.  ARPAnet delivered its first message on October 29, 1969.      Lots more detail here.