History of the Internet Quiz
From ARPANET to YouTube: 15 questions on how the internet came to be.
In what year was the first ARPANET message sent?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
1969
The first ARPANET message went from UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute on October 29, 1969, connecting the network's first two nodes.
By the end of 1969, ARPANET had four nodes: UCLA, SRI, UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah.
Who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Tim Berners-Lee
Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989 and wrote the first browser, server and web page by the end of 1990.
He was knighted in 2004 and received the Turing Award in 2016 for inventing the web.
What was the first message sent over ARPANET?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
"LO" (intended to be "LOGIN" but the system crashed)
Charley Kline at UCLA typed 'LOGIN' but the SRI computer crashed after the first two letters, so the first message ever sent was simply 'LO'.
The team tried again about an hour later and the full login went through without a problem.
Which company released the Netscape Navigator browser in 1994?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Netscape Communications
Netscape Communications, founded by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark, released Navigator in late 1994 and it quickly dominated the browser market.
Andreessen had co-written Mosaic, the earlier browser that first made the web popular, while a student at the University of Illinois.
In what year was Google founded?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
1998
Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporated Google on September 4, 1998, working from a garage in Menlo Park, California.
The name is a play on 'googol', the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, reflecting the ambition to index a vast amount of data.
What does "HTTP" stand for?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
HyperText Transfer Protocol
HyperText Transfer Protocol is the set of rules browsers and servers use to request and deliver web pages, first documented at CERN in 1991.
HTTPS adds encryption on top of HTTP, and it now carries the large majority of web traffic.
Which social media platform launched first?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
MySpace
MySpace launched in August 2003, a few months before Facebook began at Harvard, and was the world's biggest social network by 2006.
News Corp bought MySpace for 580 million dollars in 2005 and sold it for around 35 million in 2011.
Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing which internet technology in 1971?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Email (using the @ symbol)
Tomlinson sent the first networked email in 1971 on ARPANET and chose the @ symbol to separate the user name from the host computer.
Tomlinson said he could not remember the content of the first message, calling it something forgettable like 'QWERTYUIOP'.
What year did Facebook launch to the general public?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
2006
Facebook was limited to students until September 26, 2006, when it opened to anyone aged 13 or over with an email address.
The site dropped 'The' from its name in 2005 after buying the facebook.com domain for 200,000 dollars.
What was the first item ever sold on eBay (then called AuctionWeb) in 1995?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
A broken laser pointer
Pierre Omidyar sold a broken laser pointer for 14.83 dollars in 1995, and the buyer confirmed he really did collect broken laser pointers.
AuctionWeb was renamed eBay in 1997, short for Echo Bay, the name of Omidyar's consulting firm.
Which protocol, developed by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, became the foundation of internet communication?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
TCP/IP
Cerf and Kahn published the design for TCP in 1974, and ARPANET switched fully to TCP/IP on January 1, 1983, a date often called the birthday of the internet.
Vint Cerf is often called one of the fathers of the internet and later joined Google with the title Chief Internet Evangelist.
What was the name of the first search engine, created in 1990?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Archie
Archie, written by Alan Emtage at McGill University in 1990, indexed the file names on public FTP servers so users could find downloads.
The name is 'archive' without the 'v', and later tools named Veronica and Jughead continued the comic strip theme.
In what year was the first YouTube video uploaded?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
2005
'Me at the zoo', an 18-second clip of co-founder Jawed Karim at San Diego Zoo, was uploaded on April 23, 2005.
Google bought YouTube in November 2006 for 1.65 billion dollars in stock, less than two years after that first upload.
What does "Wi-Fi" stand for?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
It doesn't stand for anything (it's a brand name)
The Wi-Fi Alliance hired a branding agency to coin the name in 1999 as a catchier alternative to 'IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence'.
The 'Wireless Fidelity' tagline was used briefly in advertising, which is why many people still believe it is the official meaning.
Which country's internet domain, .tv, is popular with video and streaming sites?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Tuvalu
Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation of about 11,000 people, licenses its .tv domain and earns a significant share of government revenue from it.
Tonga's .to domain and Montenegro's .me are also marketed worldwide for their handy English meanings.
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All Technology quizzes →About the History of the Internet Quiz
The internet did not arrive all at once. It began as a Cold War research project linking four university computers in the late 1960s, gained email in 1971, and only became something ordinary people could use after the World Wide Web was created at CERN in 1989. Netscape, Google, Facebook and YouTube then arrived within a single generation, and today more than 5.5 billion people are online.
These 15 questions follow that story from ARPANET and TCP/IP through the browser wars and the first search engines to the rise of social media and online video. It suits computer science students, people who remember dial-up, and anyone who wants to know how the network in their pocket came to be. Every answer includes an explanation and a bonus fact.
You will find 15 multiple choice questions here, each with four options. Difficulty: Medium. Most people finish in about 6 minutes, and every answer comes with a short explanation and one extra fact worth keeping.
How to play
Read the question and pick one of the four answers. The correct answer is revealed straight away with a short explanation, then press Next question to keep going. At the end you get your score out of 15 and a full review of your round. Play again any time and the questions arrive in a fresh order. There is no timer and no account.
Good to know before you play
When was the internet invented?
ARPANET, the network the internet grew from, went live in the late 1960s. The World Wide Web, which made it usable for the public, followed in 1989.
How hard is the internet history quiz?
Medium. Questions on Google and YouTube are easy for most people, while those on ARPANET's first message and the first search engine reward real tech history knowledge.
Is the quiz up to date?
Yes. Every date and founding fact was checked as of September 2026, and questions that depended on shifting statistics have been replaced with settled history.
Answer key: all 15 questions with explanations
- In what year was the first ARPANET message sent?
1969 The first ARPANET message went from UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute on October 29, 1969, connecting the network's first two nodes. By the end of 1969, ARPANET had four nodes: UCLA, SRI, UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah. - Who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web?
Tim Berners-Lee Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989 and wrote the first browser, server and web page by the end of 1990. He was knighted in 2004 and received the Turing Award in 2016 for inventing the web. - What was the first message sent over ARPANET?
"LO" (intended to be "LOGIN" but the system crashed) Charley Kline at UCLA typed 'LOGIN' but the SRI computer crashed after the first two letters, so the first message ever sent was simply 'LO'. The team tried again about an hour later and the full login went through without a problem. - Which company released the Netscape Navigator browser in 1994?
Netscape Communications Netscape Communications, founded by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark, released Navigator in late 1994 and it quickly dominated the browser market. Andreessen had co-written Mosaic, the earlier browser that first made the web popular, while a student at the University of Illinois. - In what year was Google founded?
1998 Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporated Google on September 4, 1998, working from a garage in Menlo Park, California. The name is a play on 'googol', the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, reflecting the ambition to index a vast amount of data. - What does "HTTP" stand for?
HyperText Transfer Protocol HyperText Transfer Protocol is the set of rules browsers and servers use to request and deliver web pages, first documented at CERN in 1991. HTTPS adds encryption on top of HTTP, and it now carries the large majority of web traffic. - Which social media platform launched first?
MySpace MySpace launched in August 2003, a few months before Facebook began at Harvard, and was the world's biggest social network by 2006. News Corp bought MySpace for 580 million dollars in 2005 and sold it for around 35 million in 2011. - Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing which internet technology in 1971?
Email (using the @ symbol) Tomlinson sent the first networked email in 1971 on ARPANET and chose the @ symbol to separate the user name from the host computer. Tomlinson said he could not remember the content of the first message, calling it something forgettable like 'QWERTYUIOP'. - What year did Facebook launch to the general public?
2006 Facebook was limited to students until September 26, 2006, when it opened to anyone aged 13 or over with an email address. The site dropped 'The' from its name in 2005 after buying the facebook.com domain for 200,000 dollars. - What was the first item ever sold on eBay (then called AuctionWeb) in 1995?
A broken laser pointer Pierre Omidyar sold a broken laser pointer for 14.83 dollars in 1995, and the buyer confirmed he really did collect broken laser pointers. AuctionWeb was renamed eBay in 1997, short for Echo Bay, the name of Omidyar's consulting firm. - Which protocol, developed by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, became the foundation of internet communication?
TCP/IP Cerf and Kahn published the design for TCP in 1974, and ARPANET switched fully to TCP/IP on January 1, 1983, a date often called the birthday of the internet. Vint Cerf is often called one of the fathers of the internet and later joined Google with the title Chief Internet Evangelist. - What was the name of the first search engine, created in 1990?
Archie Archie, written by Alan Emtage at McGill University in 1990, indexed the file names on public FTP servers so users could find downloads. The name is 'archive' without the 'v', and later tools named Veronica and Jughead continued the comic strip theme. - In what year was the first YouTube video uploaded?
2005 'Me at the zoo', an 18-second clip of co-founder Jawed Karim at San Diego Zoo, was uploaded on April 23, 2005. Google bought YouTube in November 2006 for 1.65 billion dollars in stock, less than two years after that first upload. - What does "Wi-Fi" stand for?
It doesn't stand for anything (it's a brand name) The Wi-Fi Alliance hired a branding agency to coin the name in 1999 as a catchier alternative to 'IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence'. The 'Wireless Fidelity' tagline was used briefly in advertising, which is why many people still believe it is the official meaning. - Which country's internet domain, .tv, is popular with video and streaming sites?
Tuvalu Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation of about 11,000 people, licenses its .tv domain and earns a significant share of government revenue from it. Tonga's .to domain and Montenegro's .me are also marketed worldwide for their handy English meanings.
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