Brittnay's Blog for "The Digital Past"

The first thing that captured my attention in the YouTube video, History of the Web, was the following quote:

“… the scientific, military, and commercial approaches of these concepts are the foundations of our modern internet.”

As the narrator was talking about DARPA, the Rand Corporation, NPL, and Cyclades, (the US scientific, US military, English commericial, and French scientific factors), I could not help but think that, firstly, there were people already working on developing the internet in the late 1950s and early 60s; secondly, there were people already working on developing the internet internationally; and thirdly, the internet was developed off of only three factors.

As a person who was born in the early 90s, I learned how to use a computer and the internet when I was 6 years old, and figured out who Bill Gates was by the time I was 7: he was the richest man in the world because he invented the computer.  Growing up, I found out that he developed software called Microsoft for the personal computer, and not the computer entirely.  But I did not think of who actually developed the first computer or came up with the concept of the internet, and when it happened.

A few other things in this video that I found really interesting were that fear of an atomic attack (because of the Cold War) played in developing the internet, the term “internet” was essentially born from the French, and it was three countries that were all once a superpower in the world that worked together to help make the internet.

The three historical topics that I would be interested in researching would probably be (emphasis on probably):  The history of the Nazis, the history of the Salem Witch Trials, and the history of Hispanic and Asian people in 1950s and 1960s America (during black and white segregation).