The Internet Meets Middle Age

The first computer communications took place 40 years ago.

BURLINGAME, Calif. -- Forty years ago, on Oct. 29, 1969, the world entered a new era. A Menlo Park, Calif., outpost of ARPANET, the packet-switched network predecessor of the Internet, received the first ever communication between one computer and another. Several billion e-mails, messages, ads, videos, Tweets and (heaven help us) spams later, it's clear that this was a much bigger deal than anyone suspected at the time, a real milestone in human development.

For 10 points, what was the message? Take our Forbes Internet Anniversary quiz and see. We came up with some of our own questions and also solicited Internet trivia questions from Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ), Yahoo ( YHOO - news - people ) and Google ( GOOG - news - people ). Google put its Chief Internet Evangelist and vice president, Vinton "Vint" Cerf,on the job. Cerf, known as the "Father of the Internet" co-designed the basic architecture of the Internet.

Of course, ARPANET and the Internet are not synonymous. All science and technology is really a collaborative effort, though, and what happened 40 years ago--messaging over computers, and the technology behind it--make this an excellent candidate as a day to mark When It All Began.

Take quiz at link below.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/28/arpanet-yahoo-google-intelligent-techno...