World Wide Web
It's from 1991, before you were born.
- Maker
- Tim Berners-Lee / CERN
- Type
- Internet information system
- Debuted
- 1991
- Note
- First website: info.cern.ch
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About
As of 2026, it's 35 years old.
Invented by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, the World Wide Web went public in 1991 as a way for physicists to share documents — and accidentally became the backbone of cat videos, online shopping, and arguing with strangers.
It bundled three world-changing ideas — URLs, HTTP, and HTML — into one system, and Berners-Lee gave it all away for free, no patent, no royalties. The most lucrative thing nobody ever charged for.
From one lonely page at CERN to billions of sites, the Web is the quiet 1991 invention that turned a research network into the place where humanity now lives, works, and forgets its passwords.
World Wide Web through the years
The proposal
Berners-Lee pitches a 'mesh' of linked information at CERN.
Going live
The first website launches and the Web opens to the world.
Free for all
CERN releases the Web into the public domain, royalty-free.
