Happy Birthday Internet

Our beloved internet is 33 years young this month – and what started out in 1989 as a proposed ‘system to share general information about accelerators and experiments’ is now in 2022 something that almost two thirds of the world’s population rely on to live, work, and learn, and has changed the world as we know it forever. 

Like many others, Learning People owe our very existence to what was formerly known as the World Wide Web, and although we take education very seriously, we also recognise that birthdays are fun. So, here are 10 (what we being techies consider to be) fun facts that you probably didn’t know about something you use every day. 

 

• Fun fact number one:  If you didn’t already know, the internet was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, in 1989.
• Fun fact number two:  The initial proposal and system for information sharing was called Mesh.
• Fun fact number three:  Upon receipt of the proposal, Berners-Lee’s boss, Mike Sendall, took the memo and jotted down a note on top: “Vague but exciting …”

 

 

• Fun fact number four:  It took another year, until 1990, for Berners-Lee to start actually writing code.
• Fun fact number five:  As of January 2021 there were 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide – with 92.6 percent (4.32 billion) accessing the internet via mobile devices.
• Fun fact number six:  The first ever website looked like this…

 

 

• Fun fact number seven:  China, India and the United States have the most internet users. With China having more than 854 million internet users, India in second place with approximately 560 million online users, and the US in third position having just over 313 million internet users.  
• Fun fact number eight:  There are more than 1.5 billion websites on the internet, with the milestone of 1 billion websites being first reached in September of 2014.

 

 

• Fun fact number nine:  According to the 20th edition of the State of the Developer Nation report, there were 26.8 million active software developers in the world.
• Fun fact number ten:  This may come as a shock to few – but Google.com is the top ranking website for all categories in the world, with 86.9 billion total monthly visits.

 

So, happy birthday to the internet from all of us at Learning People Global, we’re proud to be at the forefront of how technology can improve and enhance people’s lives. 

If you’d like to find out more about getting started, progressing, or even changing your career entirely with tech, then simply get in touch with one of our expert career consultants today to discover what you can do.