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History Daily

The First Website - Original

History Daily

Airship | Noiser | Wondery

History

4.42.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2024

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

August 6, 1991. British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee launches a digital information revolution when he uploads the first site to the World Wide Web.


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad-free.

0:04.1

Listen with Wondry Plus in the Wondry app.

0:06.0

As a member of NoisorPlus at noisor.com or in Apple Podcasts,

0:10.6

or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at IntoHistory.com. It's August 6th, 1991 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.

0:33.7

36-year-old Tim Berners-Lee taps at a computer keyboard, his fingers, racing.

0:39.0

Tim is a quick typist because he's had plenty of practice.

0:42.6

For the last 15 years, his job has been to program computers, a fast-evolving technology,

0:48.5

and Tim works at the cutting edge of new research.

0:51.4

Over the last two years, he's been especially occupied by a project to link computers

0:56.0

in different locations so they can communicate with each other.

0:59.9

Now Tim is putting the finishing touches on a small prototype designed to show off what his

1:04.4

new invention can do.

1:06.9

Tim stops typing and lifts a coffee mug to his lips as he checks the code he's just written.

1:12.5

Everything seems to be in order, so Tim types in a final command, and with a flourish that no one sees but him, he presses enter.

1:22.8

Tim then rises from his chair and looks around, hoping to share the moment with someone, but the office is deserted.

1:29.3

No one knows what he's just done, and since the scientists and engineers at CERN are all focused on their own areas of research, he suspects not many will care anyway.

1:38.3

But Tim is still in the mood to mark the culmination of years of hard work, so he heads to the staff breakroom.

1:45.2

A fresh cup of coffee is an understated celebration, because not even Tim realizes that this

1:50.6

is a revolutionary moment, one that will change the world.

1:54.6

Tim Berners-Lee has just published the world's very first website.

2:02.7

Within a few decades, there will be more than 500 million websites.

2:07.7

Today, there are almost 2 billion.

...

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