Featured moment · World history

World Wide Web announced to the public

August 1991

Tim Berners-Lee announced the World Wide Web project to a wider Internet audience from CERN.

The NeXT computer used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN as the first World Wide Web server, photographed later in a museum — Photograph: Coolcaesar, photograph from 2005 of the historic NeXT server / Wikimedia Commons. View image, creator and licence on Wikimedia Commons.

What happened?

Tim Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web while working at CERN in 1989 and built an early browser, server and website by the end of 1990. In August 1991 he announced the software on Internet newsgroups, making a growing community aware of a new way to link and navigate documents.

Why it mattered

The Web made sharing and discovering linked information far easier. CERN’s decision to release the software into the public domain in 1993 helped accelerate worldwide adoption, eventually transforming communication, publishing, education and commerce.