ARPANET

Since the dawn of the commercial Internet, people have made references to the Internet as a “series of tubes” or claimed that former United States Vice President Al Gore invented the Internet (he did play a key role in expanding Internet access, but didn’t actually invent it). Where was the Internet invented? When was it invented? While many people can claim that they helped develop the Internet into what it is today, the initial idea for the Internet started with the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) under the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) at the United States Department of Defense.

- Jose Alvarez

While Tim Berners-Lee is often cited as the father of the Internet, as he invented the World Wide Web in 1989, the initial idea of a network of computers came from J.C.R. “Lick” Licklider. Licklider’s resume was extremely well-suited to the development of ARPANET. He triple majored in physics, mathematics, and psychology in 1937 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Licklider joined ARPA in 1962 after a career in academia at prestigious universities such as Harvard and MIT. At ARPA, Licklider was named head of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO).