CYBERSPACE — It’s likely that most readers of this article have spent plenty of time online during November, and the month isn’t even over. But it’s equally likely that very few of those same readers know that this is a special month in the history of the internet. November, after all, is the month during which W3, also known as the World Wide Web or internet, was born.According to the timeline found on W3.org, November was a busy month for the fetal communications medium with, among other innovations, a WYSIWG (What You See Is What You Get) browser/editor with embedded links being developed. Without the very first website, however, the browser would have been pointless.

If W3.org is correct, that very first web server was nxoc01.cern.ch, which was eventually renamed info.cern.ch and hosted the very first website, http://nxoc01.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.

Although CERN no longer supports this venerable website, some comfort may be gained by knowing that http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/Link.html looks the way it always has and appears to be the oldest unchanged website still online, having been updated an impressive 16 years ago on Tuesday, November 13th, 1990.

For more details about the development of the Web, visit W3.org/History.html.