My Experience on Learning About the History of the Web

Learning about the web’s beginnings at CERN was like discovering the origin story of something we all use daily but rarely stop to think about. It started with Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist who, in 1989, was working at CERN, the massive European research centre.

Tim had a simple goal: to make it easier for scientists around the world to share information. And from this idea, the World Wide Web was born.

CERN, with its thousands of researchers from over 100 countries, needed a way to stay connected. In 1991, the world’s first website went live at CERN on a NeXT computer, with a basic page describing what the web was and how to make your own web server. It wasn’t flashy, but it was revolutionary. Then, in 1993, CERN made the web's code available for free, sparking a rapid spread of websites around the globe.

By the end of 1994, the web had exploded to over 10,000 servers and millions of users, evolving into the global information network we all rely on today. Berners-Lee wanted to keep it open, so he formed the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make sure it stayed accessible and free.

Learning about CERN’s role changed my view of the web. It’s not just a tool, it’s the result of one man’s vision and an entire community's collaboration to make knowledge accessible to everyone.