LACNIC Celebrated the Internet’s 50th Anniversary
29/10/2019
On October 29, 1969 Leonard Kleinrock, Charles Kline and Steve Crocker were able to make a computer at the University of California (UCLA) “talk” to another device located at the Stanford Research Institute.
These engineers found a way for computers to transmit data by dividing them into “digital packets.” That day, the goal was to type the word LOGIN and establish a link with a remote computer, but after transmitting the “O”, the computer refused to continue working. That’s how the first message ever transmitted turned out to be “LO”, thus giving birth to the Internet.
LACNIC celebrated the first 50 years of the Internet by holding two events:
On October 31, Casa de Internet for Latin America and the Caribbean started the festivities by welcoming four of the region’s Internet pioneers, who analyzed and discussed the first half century of the Internet and the future ahead for the network. Organized jointly by LACNIC and the Internet Society, the panel featured renowned experts Florencio Utreras (Chile), Ermano Pietrosémoli (Italy) and Demi Getschko (Brazil).
The celebrations marking this first data transmission from a computer at UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute (United States) over what was then known as the ARPANET continued on 5 November at 17:00 UTC, when a webinar was held with the individuals responsible for this milestone, which many consider to be the genesis of the Internet. The webinar featured the participation of Leonard Kleinrock (professor at the UCLA that day, October 31st, 1969), Charles Kline (Kleinrock’s student at the lab who devised and sent the first data to connect to a computer located 600 kilometers away), and Steve Crocker (one of the creators of ARPANET and recognized worldwide as the father of the Internet).
We invite you to click here to watch the webinar.
