Internet / DNS Timeline
© The INAIC 2007
Items in red are of general interest and historical for reference purposes only
Items in blue relate specifically to the DNS.  There are many more DNS items but they are technical in nature and only the interesting ones are highlighted
Items in violet are directly related to the Public-Root
1945 Vennevar Bush publishes paper on memex machine.
1957 U.S.S.R. launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite.
1958 In response, U.S. forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military.
1958 President Eisenhower requests funds to create ARPA. Approved as a line item in Air Force appropriations bill.
1960 J.C.R. Licklider publishes his landmark paper
1961 Len Kleinrock, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, writes first paper on packet switching, "Information Flow in Large Communications Nets." Paper published in RLE Quarterly Progress Report.
1962 J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark write first paper on Internet Concept, "On-Line Man Computer Communications."
1962 Len Kleinrock writes Communication Nets, which describes design for packet switching network; used for ARPAnet
1962 Paul Baran (RAND) writes, "On Distributed Communications Networks," first paper on using message blocks to send info across a decentralized networktopology(Nodes and Links)
1963 Licklider funds Engelbarts new "Augmentation Research Center" at Stanford.
1963 President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas.
1965 Paul Baran gets funding from U.S. Air Force to experiment with a block switching network to protect communications during an nuclear war. However, he withdrew his proposal when the project was shifted to military managers.
Oct 1965 First Network Experiment: ARPA sponsors study. Directed by Larry Roberts at MIT Lincoln Lab, two computers talked to each other using packet-switching technology.
Dec 1966 ARPA project begins. Larry Roberts is chief scientist.
1967 ACM Symposium on Operating Principles Plan presented for a packet-switching network First design paper on ARPANET published by Lawrence G. Roberts
1967 National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops NPL Data Network under D. W. Davies
1968 ARPA mails out 140 Requests for Proposals to prospective contractors to build the first four IMPs.
Dec 1968 ARPANet contract given to Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Mass.
1969 ARPAnet commissioned by DoD for research into networking. First nodes were UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UCSB, and University of Utah. 
1969 Use of Interface Message Processors (IMP) developed by Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN)
1969 First node-to-node message sent between UCLA and SRI - which was also the first ARPAnet crash
1969 First Request for Comments (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker, written overnight in a bathroom so he wouldn't wake-up anyone.
1 Sep 1969 First ARPANet node installed at UCLA Network Measurement Center. Kleinrock hooked up the Interface Message Processor to a Sigma 7 Computer.
1 Oct 1969 Second node installed at Stanford Research Institute; connected to a SDS 940 computer. The first ARPANet message sent: "lo." Trying to spell log-in, but the system crashed!
1 Nov 1969 Third node installed at University of California, Santa Barbara. Connected to an IBM 360/75.
1 Dec 1969 Fourth node installed at University of Utah. Connected to a DEC PDP-10.
1970 ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP).
Mar 1970 Fifth node installed at BBN, across the country in Cambridge, Mass.
Jul 1970 Alohanet, first packet radio network, operational at University of Hawaii, developed by Norm Abramson.
1971 15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, Univ of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND, SDC, Harvard, Lincoln Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames.
1972 International Conference on Computer Communications with demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal Interface Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn. (October).
1972 InterNetworking Working Group (INWG) created to address need for establishing agreed upon protocols. Chairman: Vinton Cerf.
1972 Telnet specification. 
Mar 1972 First basic e-mail programs written by Ray Tomlinson at BBN for ARPANET: SNDMSG and READMAIL. "@" sign chosen for its "at" meaning.
1973 Internet Protocol conceived
1973 Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet.
1973 Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts internetting research program at ARPA. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March on back of envelope in hotel lobby in San Francisco.
1973 Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at Univ of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
1973 File Transfer Protocol specification (RFC 454)
1973 Network Voice Protocol (NVP) specification (RFC 741) and implementation enabling conference calls over ARPAnet.
Mar 1973 First ARPANET international connections to University College of London (England) and Royal Radar Establishment (NORSAR) (Norway).
Dec 1973 HOSTS.TXT (RFC 606) established a table by which the address of machines can be looked up using names.
1974 Intelreleases the 8080 processor.
1974 Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection," which details the design of TCP.
1974 Larry Roberts founds Telenet, the first commercial packet-switched data service
1975 Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now DISA)
1976 Apple Computer founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
1976 Queen Elizabeth II sends out an e-mail.
1976 Vint Cerf joins ARPA as program manager.
1976 UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) e-mail system developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later.
1977 THEORYNET created by Larry Landweber at Univ of Wisconsin providing electronic mail to over 100 researchers in computer science (using a locally developed email system and TELENET for access to server).
1977 Mail specification (RFC 733)
1977 Tymshare launches Tymnet, competition for Telenet.
1977 First demonstration of ARPANET/Packet Radio Net/SATNET operation of Internet protocols with BBN-supplied gateways in July
1978 TCP split into TCP and IP.
1979 Meeting between Univ of Wisconsin, DARPA, NSF, and computer scientists from many universities to establish a Computer Science Department research computer network (organized by Larry Landweber).
1979 USENET established using UUCP between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin. All original groups were under net.* hierarchy.
1979 ARPA establishes the Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB)
1979 Packet Radio Network (PRNET) experiment starts with DARPA funding. Most communications take place between mobile vans. ARPANET connection via SRI.
1979 Bob Metcalfe and others found 3Com (Computer Communication Compatibility).
1980 Tim Berners-Lee writes program called "Enquire Within," predecessor to the World Wide Web.
1981 IBM announces its first Personal Computer. Microsoft creates DOS.
1981 BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork" started as a cooperative network at the City University of New York, with the first connection to Yale. Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute information, as well as file transfers.
1981 CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) built by Univ of Delaware, Purdue Univ, Univ of Wisconsin, RAND Corporation and BBN through NSF grant to give university scientists access to ARPANET. CSNET later becomes known as the Computer and Science Network.
Sep 1981 RFC 799 published outlining basic concepts of DNS
1982 DCA and ARPA establish Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), as protocol suite commonly known as TCP/IP.
1982 DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD
Aug 1982 RFC 819 defines initial top level domain ARPA and initial schedule
1983 Cisco Systems founded.
1983 Paul Mockapetris writes JEEVES, the first name server (1983 - 1985)
1983 Name server deployed at Univ of Wisconsin, no longer requiring users to know the exact path to other systems.
1983 Cutover from NCP to TCP/IP (1 January)
1983 CSNET / ARPANET gateway put in place
1983 ARPANET split into ARPANET and MILNET; the latter became integrated with the Defense Data Network created the previous year.
1983 Desktop workstations come into being, many with Berkeley UNIX which includes IP networking software.
1983 Berkeley releases 4.2BSD incorporating TCP/IP, with much of the programming done by Bill Joy
Nov 1983 HOSTS.TXT table was unwieldly and hard to keep up to date on all hosts.  Solution: Domain Name System (DNS) designed by Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris, and Craig Partridge. .edu, .gov, .com, .mil, .org, .net, and .int created.
Nov 1983 RFC 881 and 883 published with revised domain implementation schedule. DNS is born.
1984 Domain Name System (DNS) introduced.
1984 Number of hosts breaks 1,000
1984 Ralph Campbell and Kevin Dunlap start development of BIND name server at UC Berkeley (1984 - 1987)
1984 Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET (mod.*)
1984 George Orwell's prophesy of the universal loss of individual rights doesn't come true.
1984 William Gibson writes "Neuromancer." Coins the term "cyberspace".
1984 Apple Computer introduces the Macintosh on January 24th.
1984 ARPAnet and MILNET split (1984 - 1985)
Feb 1984 RFC 897 revised domain implementation schedule
30 May 1984 Test server running on USC-ISIF
21 Jun 1984 Druid server from SUMEX-AIM announced
28 Jul 1984 Test servers running on TOPS-20 (SRI-NIC, ISIB, ISIF) SRI-NIC 10.0.0.51 26.0.0.73 ; JEEVES ISIB 10.3.0.52 ; JEEVES ISIF 10.2.0.52 ; JEEVES
Oct 1984 RFC 920 Domain Requirements published. Adds GOV, EDU, COM, MIL and ORG as Top-level Domains.
Oct 1984 RFC 921 revised domain implementation schedule
1985 First TLD created by Bradley Thornton to research expansion of the DNS TLD and root system.  TLD delegated to PacificRoot in 1996.
1985 DARPA/DCA implements RFC 920, 921 (USC-ISI/SRI-NIC)
1985 Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL), operated by Stewart Brand on his houseboat, is open for calls.
1985 On march 15th, Symbolics.com is assigned the first registered domain. Other firsts: cmu.edu, purdue.edu, rice.edu, ucla.edu (April); css.gov (June); mitre.org, .uk (July)
1985 100 years to the day of the last spike being driven on the cross-Canada railroad, the last Canadian university is connected to NetNorth in a one year effort to have coast-to-coast connectivity.
Jan 1985 SRI contracted to run DNS service
Mar 85 Initial DNS implementation.
15 Mar 1985 Symbolics.COM registered
1 Apr 1985 Berkeley releases BIND
13 May 1985 One of two COM zones working, three of eight EDU zones working
28 May 1985 4.2bsd UDP checksum problems with BIND servers/resolvers
12 Jun 1985 ISIF no longer a root server. Now a test server for new code SRI-NIC 10.0.0.51 26.0.0.73 ; JEEVES ISIB 10.3.0.52 ; JEEVES
28 Jun 1985 SRI-NIC and ISIB unreachable (no root servers reachable)
29 Jun 1985 Debug root-server down code
Jul 1985 ccTLDs established
5 Jul 1985 Disk quota problem with NIC databases truncates files
14 Oct 1985 Database error making ARPA a separate zone in the root and ARPA domains
29 Oct 1985 Mockapetris  publishes  Top  10  list of things wrong with name servers
31 Oct 1985 Who's the root? Answer: Ask a nameserver SRI-NIC 10.0.0.51 26.0.0.73 ; JEEVES ISIB 10.3.0.52 ; JEEVES ISIC 10.0.0.52 ; JEEVES BRL-AOS 192.5.25.82 128.20.1.2 ; BIND
10 Dec 1985 Authority  loophole  in  name servers (servers may be befuddled but don't lie)
1986 5000 hosts on ARPAnet/Internet.
1986 NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps)
1986 NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide high-computing power for all (JVNC@Princeton, PSC@Pittsburgh, SDSC@UCSD, NCSA@UIUC, Theory Center@Cornell). This allows an explosion of connections, especially from universities.
1986 NSF-funded SDSCNET, JVNCNET, SURANET, and NYSERNET operational
1986 The first Freenet (Cleveland) comes on-line 16 July under the auspices of the Society for Public Access Computing (SoPAC). Later Freenet program management assumed by the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) in 1989
1986 Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) designed to enhance Usenet news performance over TCP/IP.
Jan 1986 Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) comes into existence under the IAB. First IETF meeting held in January at Linkabit in San Diego
26 Feb 1986 NIC  zone  serial numbers begin to increment (previously always 1)
10 Oct 1986 BIND  4.4  updated  to  store  backup file on disk on secondary servers.  Previously  it was downloaded from primary every time named started, if primary didn't answer, secondaries denied the domain existed
21 Oct 1986 More root name servers requested (TOPS-20 machines preferred)
10 Nov 1986 ISIB retired from service, ISIA added as new root server SRI-NIC.ARPA 10.0.0.51 26.0.0.73 ; JEEVES USC-ISIC.ARPA 10.0.0.52 ; JEEVES BRL-AOS.ARPA 192.5.22.82 128.20.1.2 ; BIND USC-ISIA.ARPA 26.3.0.103 ; JEEVES
1987 ARPANET  congestion affecting traffic to root servers (all root NS on Arpanet)
1987 10,000 hosts on the Internet.
1987 NSF signs a cooperative agreement to manage the NSFNET backbone with Merit Network, Inc. (IBM and MCI) involvement was through an agreement with Merit). Merit, IBM, and MCI later founded ANS.
1987 UUNET is founded with Usenix funds to provide commercial UUCP and Usenet access. Originally an experiment by Rick Adams and Mike O'Dell
1987 First Cisco routershipped.
1987 25 million PCs sold in US.
Mar 1987 cs.ucl.ac.uk  BIND,  SATNET,  EGP  problems  cause  brl-aos  to authortatively deny its existence
31 Mar 1987 Removal of all nondomain-style host names in NETINFO:HOSTS.TXT
19 Oct 1987 Where is France? Root zone contains wrong delegation for .FR
Oct 1987 Arpanet  congestion  now  so  bad sometimes no root servers are reachable
Nov 1987 DNS Specification (STD 13, RFCs 1034 & 1035). DNS as we know it today.
12 Nov 1987 Root  servers now include SOA RRs to allow negative caching due to bogon load
18 Nov 1987 Retire  C.ISI.EDU  from root server duty. Add GUNTER-ADAM.ARPA, C.NYSER.NET   TERP.UMD.EDU   and  NS.NASA.GOV.  GUNTER-ADAM  is JEEVES,  the rest are BIND.
22 Nov 1987 C.ISI.EDU disconnected, doesn't stop clients from trying to use it
25 Dec 1987 through 4 Jan 1988 SRI  NIC  closed  for  Christmas holidays, including HOSTMASTER mail
1988 DoD chooses to adopt OSI and sees use of TCP/IP as an interim. US Government OSI Profile (GOSIP) defines the set of protocols to be supported by Government purchased products
1988 NSFNET backbone upgraded to T1 (1.544Mbps)
1988 CERFnet (California Education and Research Federation network) founded by Susan Estrada, named after Vint Cerf
1988 Internet Relay Chat (IRC) developed by Jarkko Oikarinen
1988 FidoNet gets connected to the Net, enabling the exchange of e-mail and news
7 Apr 1988 C.NYSER.NET moved to new network and location
20 Aug 1988 Where  is  Norway?  Long  TTL values for .NO hide new MX record through  UUNET  after  Norway  loses  its  satellite link for a couple of months
14 Sep 1988 Root name server bugs (TERP.UMD.EDU and NS.NASA.GOV)
2 Nov 1988 Internet worm burrows through the Net, affecting ~6,000 of the 60,000 hosts on the Internet.
Nov 1988 CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) formed by DARPA in response to the needs exhibited during the Morris worm incident. The worm is the only advisory issued this year.
Nov 1988 .int domain established
26 Dec 1988 through 2 Jan 1989 SRI  NIC  closed  for  Christmas holidays, including HOSTMASTER mail
1989 100,000 hosts on Internet.
1989 McAfee Associates founded; anti-virus software available for free. Quantum becomes America Online.
1989 First relays between a commercial electronic mail carrier and the Internet: MCI Mail through the Corporation for the National Research Initiative (CNRI), and Compuserve through Ohio State Univ.
1989 First Interop conference in San Jose, CA, created to promote the use of TCP/IP packet-switched networking
1989 Countries connecting to NSFNET: Australia (AU), Germany (DE), Israel (IL), Italy (IT), Japan (JP), Mexico (MX),Netherlands (NL), New Zealand (NZ), Puerto Rico (PR), United Kingdom (UK)
4 Feb 1989 BRL-AOS.ARPA over 1 week old data, C.NYSER.NET over 2 weeks old data
2 Jun 1989 TERP.UMD.EDU  and  C.NYSER.NET  old  data. SRI-NIC.ARPA only on ARPANET  and  MILNET,  not  available  via  NSFNET  and is very congested
1990 ARPAnet ends.
1990 Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web.
1990 Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is founded by Mitch Kapor and Stewart Brand
1990 Archie released by Peter Deutsch, Alan Emtage, and Bill Heelan at McGill
1990 Hytelnet released by Peter Scott (Univ of Saskatchewan)
1990 The World comes on-line (world.std.com), becoming the first commercial provider of Internet dial-up access
1990 ISO Development Environment (ISODE) developed to provide an approach for OSI migration for the DoD. ISODE software allows OSI application to operate over TCP/IP
1990 Countries connecting to NSFNET: Argentina (AR), Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Brazil (BR), Chile (CL), Greece (GR), India (IN), Ireland (IE), Korea (KR), Spain (ES), Switzerland (CH)
6 Apr 1990 NIC  address  10.0.0.51  retired,  NS.NIC.DDN.MIL  192.67.67.53 added as root
1 Jun 1990 NIC.DDN.MIL  26.0.0.73  root service ends (last "original" root server)
26 Oct 1990 SRI-NIC.ARPA is back, bogus root cache corruption in BIND
26 Oct 1990 GUNTER-ADAM.AF.MIL  removed  for  1  month  for maintenance and upgrading
1991 Gopher released by Paul Lindner and Mark P. McCahill from the Univ of Minnessota
1991  World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN; Tim Berners-Lee developer
1991 PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) released by Philip Zimmerman
1991 NSFNET backbone upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps)
1991 NSFNET traffic passes 1 trillion bytes/month and 10 billion packets/month
1 May 1991 DDN (Defense Data Network) NIC contract awarded by DISA to Government Systems Inc. GSI and transfered from SRI International
28 Jul 1991 NIC.NORDU.NET  appears  as  a  root  server in root-servers.txt (first non-US root server)
1992 Number of hosts breaks 1,000,000
1992 Internet Society (ISOC) is chartered
1992 Veronica, a gopherspace search tool, is released by Univ of Nevada
1992 "Surfing the Internet" is coined by Jean Armour Polly.
26 Mar 1992 Bogus  "."  contamination  moevax.edu.tw  (and  many  more  for several years)
1 Jun 1992 Caching-only   name   server   (BIND)   hangs  when  forwarders unreachable
Oct 1992 Network Solutions awarded NSFNET NIC contract.
1993 InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services: directory and database services (AT&T); registration services (Network Solutions Inc.); information services (General Atomics/CERFnet).
1993 US National Information Infrastructure Act
1993 Gopher's growth is 997%.
1993 Slow  connections/packet  loss  to  NIC.DDN.MIL  result in many different  distribution problems. People report consistent 50%+ packet loss to NIC.DDN.MIL root name server.
1993 Mosaic Web browser developed by Marc Andreesen at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
1993 Web grows by 341,000 percent in a year.
Apr 1993 Mosaic 1.0 Web browser released.  Developed by Marc Andreesen at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, takes the Internet by storm; WWW proliferates at a 341,634% annual growth rate of service traffic.
15 Apr 1993 InterNIC created. Contract awarded to NSI. NS.INTERNIC.NET added to hints file NSI/GSI Internet connection upgraded from 56K to T1
21 Apr 1993 Root server list UDP packet size limit exceeded
31 Aug 1993 Bellovin  suggests  using  pseudo-host  root.net to pack server list
1994 ARPANET/Internet celebrates 25th anniversary
1994 NSFNET traffic passes 10 trillion bytes/month
1994 WWW edges out telnet to become 2nd most popular service on the Net (behind ftp-data) based on % of packets and bytes traffic distribution on NSFNET
Apr 1994 Netscape Communications founded.
Apr 1994 Jeff Bezos writes the business plan for Amazon.com.
Apr 1994 Java's first public demonstration.
3 Apr 1994 AOS.BRL.MIL renamed AOS.ARL.ARMY.MIL (server name mismatch)
19 Apr 1994 Sprint  employee  registers  the  domain  name  MCI.NET  (first namejacking?)
9 May 1994 KAVA.NISC.SRI.COM removed as a root name server
16 May 1994 NS1.ISI.EDU added as a root name server
Jun 1994 Commercial use of internet becomes dominant.
Jul 94 Postel's ISOC-IANA Charter
18 Jul 1994 Bogus in-addr.arpa SOA/NS disrupts networks
28 Aug 1994 Malformed  PTR entry in in-addr.arpa zone disrupts most (almost all) root name servers, many using old software
Sep 94 NSF-IEEE .COM Workshop
2 Sep 1994 NS.ISC.ORG added as a root name server
7 Oct 1994 C.NYSER.NET changed to C.PSI.NET
17 Oct 1994 Bogus NS records for COM zone polluting servers
Dec 1994 Microsoft licenses technology from Spyglass to create Web browser for Windows 95.
1995 Public discussions begin on what to do with the DNS.  Dr. Jon Postel shows interest in expanding TLD base to meet public demand and technical concerns.
1995 Independent TLDs .CAL and .SAT created on Internet by PacificRoot to research expansion of TLD infrastructure.  Delegated by the Public-Root to PacificRoot in 1996.  
1995 NSFNET reverts back to a research network. Main US backbone traffic now routed through interconnected network providers
1995 The new NSFNET is born as NSF establishes the very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) linking super-computing centers: NCAR, NCSA, SDSC, CTC, PSC
1995 RealAudio, an audio streaming technology, lets the Net hear in near real-time
1995 WWW surpasses ftp-data in March as the service with greatest traffic on NSFNet based on packet count, and in April based on byte count
1995 Traditional online dial-up systems (Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy) begin to provide Internet access
1995 A number of Net related companies go public, with Netscape leading the pack with the 3rd largest ever NASDAQ IPO share value (9 August)
15 Feb 1995 Recursion  turned  off  on  the  last  root name server with it enabled
Mar 1995 ISOC Postel Charter discussions "inquiring minds"
23 May 1995 Sun Microsystems releases Java.
4 Aug 1995 root-servers.net  introduced into root zone ns.nasa.gov changed ip addresses ns.isc.org uses net 39 experiment address
24 Aug 1995 Windows 95 released.
Sep 1995 Independent TLDs .EARTH and .USA created on Internet by ADNS to research expansion of TLDs infrastructure.  Delegated by the Public-Root to ADNS in 1996.  
1 Sep 1995 ns.internic.net    changed    to    a.root-servers.net    (last root-servers.net change)
13 Sep 1995 Leaked: NSI begins fee-based DNS registration. Domain names no longer free - was subsidized by NSF. NSF continues to pay for .edu registration, and on an interim basis for .gov
16 Nov 1995 f.root-servers.net   address  change  at  the  end  of  net  39 experiment
Oct 1995 NSF-KSG Workshop
Dec 1995 ISOC-Postel takeover draft RFC
Dec 1995 Simon Higgs creates TLDs .COUPONS, .KOSHER, and .REBATES to research TLD operations.  Later delegated to Higgs by the Public-Root.
1996 Public-Root founded. Alternic the Internet's first public-root root experiment is launched in response to Postel96 "New Registries and the Delegation of International Top Level Domains".  
1996 Domain name tv.com sold to CNET for $15,000. Browser wars begin. Netscape and Microsoft two biggest players.
1996 Internet phones catch the attention of US telecommunication companies who ask the US Congress to ban the technology (which has been around for years)
1996 MCI upgrades Internet backbone adding ~13,000 ports, bringing the effective speed from 155Mbps to 622Mbps.
1996 The Internet Ad Hoc Committee announces plans to add 7 new generic Top Level Domains (gTLD): .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info, .nom. The IAHC plan also calls for a competing group of domain registrars worldwide.
1996 The WWW browser war, fought primarily between Netscape and Microsoft, has rushed in a new age in software development, whereby new releases are made quarterly with the help of Internet users eager to test upcoming (beta) versions.
Jan 1996 NSF-KSG Workshop
Feb 1996 Public-Root TLD .dot delegated to NielsenNET.
Mar 1996 DNS operators begin planning for competition and commercialization of the root system.
Apr 1996 Public-Root assigns NIC TLD to VRX Network Services to test viability of a TLD shared by NICs.
May 1996 Public-Root TLDs .INC, .LAW, .SPORT, .GAMES, .ASIA, .EMAIL, .GLOBE and .LEARN delegated to GLOBECOMM Networks.
May 1996 Guardian announced to protect names and server information
Jun 1996 Public-Root TLDs .MOV, .MAG, .NEWS delegated to Simon Higgs
Jun 1996 Public-Root TLD .K12 delegated to PacificRoot.
Jun 1996 OECD Workshop
Jul 1996 TLD .SEX delegated in public root to Marc Hurst and Tim Gibson.
Jul 1996 Public-Root TLDs .800, .888, FAQ, ZOO, and DDS delegated to VRX Network Services.
Jul 1996 Public-Root TLD .WEB delegated to IO Designs.
23 Jul 1996 g.root-servers.net root zone expired, bogus responses
Aug 1996 Postel96 IETF Internet-Draft: New Registries and the Delegation of International Top Level Domains.
Aug 1996  IANA's Jon Postel someone who could reasonably be considered an authority on the operational aspects of the Inter-net, proposed adding 300 new TLDs over a period of five years, 150 of them in the first year.  Internet stakeholders invited to participate.
Aug 1996 In response to Postel initiative Public-Root TLDs .MED, .ART, .ARTS, .SKY, .BANK, .DIR, .FILM, .FUND, .HELP, .VIDEO, .RADIO, .HOTEL, .MUSIC, .ISP, .ZINE delegated to ICM Registry.
Aug 1996 Public-Root TLD .ENT delegated to FastLane Networks in Canada.
Aug 1996 NSF-KSG Workshop
Aug 1996 Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft DNS Server released
22 Aug 1996 Bind/malformed record problems ".comcom" (believed to be malicious)
Nov 96 Public-Root TLD .IRC delegated to Jerky Networks.
Nov 1996 IAHC begins
8 Nov 1996 Bogus  address  for  ns.uu.net  (secondary name server for many other domains)
1997 eDNS launches additional Public-Root servers to meet demand.
1997 Open Root Server Confederation adds Public-Root servers and begins co-ordination of root expansions experiments.
1997 2000th RFC: "Internet Official Protocol Standards"
1997 71,618 mailing lists registered at Liszt, a mailing list directory
1997 The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is established to handle administration and registration of IP numbers to the geographical areas currently handled by Network Solutions (InterNIC), starting March 1998.
1997 101,803 Name Servers in WHOIS database 
1997 business.com sold for $150,000.
Jan 1997 RFC 2065 published, describing DNS security extensions.
22 Jan 1997 root only root name servers J and K added
Feb 1997 IAHC ITU gTLD-MoU release
14 Feb 1997 h.root-servers.net loses COM zone and authoritatively denies it exists
28 Feb 1997 root only root name servers L and M added
Mar 1997 Public-Root TLD .CORP delegated to PacificRoot
Apr 1997 RFC 2136 published, introducing dynamic update.
12 Apr 1997 h.root-servers.net loses COM zone (again)
May 1997 MoU signed
May 1997 BIND 8.1 released
19 May 1997 k.root-servers.net moved to London LINX managed by RIPE/NCC
Jun 1997 ITU gTLD-MoU meeting
26 Jun 1997 i.root-servers.net loses COM zone
Jul 1997 NTIA NOI
13 Jul 1997 Kashpureff corrupts DNS caches redirecting InterNIC traffic to AlterNIC.
17 Jul 1997 Error  during  the  generation  of  COM  and  NET  zones at NSI truncates zone information
14 Aug 1997 Public-Root TLD .POL delegated to Elektron Sp. of Warsaw Poland.  First TLD and Public-Root system in Poland.
22 Aug 1997 m.root-servers.net moved to Japan managed by WIDE Project
Sep 1997 Congressional hearings
1998 US Depart of Commerce outlines proposal to privatize DNS. ICANN created by Jon Postel to oversee privatization. Jon Postel dies.
1998 Netscape releases the source code for its Netscape Navigator browser to the public domain.
1998 Microsoft releases Windows 98. Months later the government orders Microsoft to change its Java virtual machine to pass Sun's Java compatibility test.
1998 Microsoft is taken to court for allegations of anti-trust violations.
11 Nov 1998 [fjk].gtld-servers.net  giving NXDOMAIN response to queries for COM zone f.root-servers.net lame due to ISP problems at NSI
Jan 1998 Green Paper
1999 AOL buys Netscape; Andreesen steps down as full-time employee.
1999 Browsers wars declared over; Netscape and Microsoft share almost 100% of browser market.
1999 Microsoft declared a monopoly by US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.
1999 Shawn Fanning creates Napster, opening the possibilities of peer-to-peer file sharing and igniting a copyright war in the music industry.
2 Jul 1999 NSI web site redirected to CORE with ICANN glue record
Dec 1999 business.com sold for $7.5 million.
10 Jan 2000 AOL Merges with Time-Warner. AOL shareholders take 55% stake in newly formed company.
Feb 2000 A large-scale denial of service attack is launched against some major Web sites like Yahoo! and eBay, alerting Web sites to the need for tighter security measures.
Feb 2000 Windows 2000 released
May 2000 RFC 2845 published, introducing transaction security.
15 Jul 2000 ICANN Board introduces new Top-Level Domains
23 Aug 2000 Timing bug causes missing NS records for COM zone on a.root-servers.net
Sep 2000 BIND 9.0.0 released
Nov 2000 ICANN approves new gTLDs (aero, coop, museum, name and pro) and rejects TLD: .xxx claimed by the ICM Registry. 
Jan 2001 Microsoft DNS debacle
Jan 2001 TSIG buffer overrun in BIND 8
Mar 2001 LiOn worm uses TSIG buffer overrun as transmission vector
22 Mar 2001 NewRoot introduces an on-line registration service to allow anyone to register a new TLD in the Public-Root for $1000.- only.
Jul 2001 A federal judge rules that Napster must remain off-line until it can prevent copyrighted material from being shared by its users.
1 Jun 2001 A Council of seven is established to approve, create and delegate new TLDs in the Public-Root. (Later to be the INAIC Council)
6 Jun 2001 ICANN is losing control of ccTLDs. A working group of the country-code top level domains (ccTLDs) voted unanimously to withdraw from ICANN's Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO).
Jun 2002 DoS vulnerability in BIND 9
Oct 2002 DDos attack against USG root name servers
Nov 2002 SIG record bug in BIND 4 and 8, NXDOMAIN EDNSO bug in BIND 8
5 Nov 2002 J.root-servers.net address changed to a different network from A.root-servers.net  (first change to root server list after Dr. Postel's death)
1 Jan 2003 Until 31 December 2002, TLD: .org was operated by VeriSign Global Registry Services. ICANN determined that VeriSign had fallen out of favor and delegated .org to the Public Interest Registry (PIR).
1 Jan 2003 NewRoot introduces additional DNS services to support Domain Name Registrars.
22 Sep 2003 VeriSign rejects a request from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to suspend a service that redirects Internet users who have mistyped domain names. 
3 Jul 2003 The ICANN has once again announced its intention to involve the Internet community in its decision making process
1 Dec 2003 Register.World launches its on-line domain name registry for the registration of domain names under various public TLDs
1 Jan 2004 The Internet Names Authorization & Information Center (INAIC) becomes the official representative body for the Public-Root.
1 Oct 2004 The Uniform Corporate Domain Authority (UCDA) has published recommended information standards for the uniform naming of resources under corporate Top-Level Domains (TLDs).
18 Nov 2004 MANROW resumes the on-line TLD registration services from NewRoot.
1 Dec 2004 Hans Bakker accepts his election and appointment as Director of Public-Root Ltd.
17 Dec 2004 The Public-Root DNS Operations Working Group (DNSops WG) is chartered.
15 Jan 2005 UNIDT is to become the official TLD Registrar for the registration of Public TLDs (pTLDs) and Corporate TLDs (cTLDs).
1 May 2005 The first Turkish ISP is resolving from the Public-Root
24 May 2005 Rabo Bank publishes a six page article about Public TLDs in the spring issue of the RaboCom magazine.
25 May 2005 Public-Root resolves the first three Multilingual (Chinese Character) TLDs
1 Jun 2005 Large numbers of pTLDs and cTLDs change registrants by TLD auctions and commercial trading.
28 Jun 2005 The famous musician Vangelis registers its own cTLD: .VANGELIS
1 Jul 2005 Large Corporations like Tomtom, KPMG, Brinks and Sita etc. etc. are registering their own Corporate TLDs .
21 Jul 2005 Washington Internet Daily: Public-Root Said to be the Next-Generation of Internet Addressing.
26 Jul 2005 Tiscaly starts resolving from the Public-Root and updates its DNS.
30 Jul 2005 The entire nation of Turkey is resolving from the Public-Root.
1 Aug 2005 6 More countries are considering to start resolving from the Public-Root.
15 Aug 2005 US President George W. Bush objects to gTLD: .XXX
15 Aug 2005 Joe Baptista starts slandering the Public-Root and some other public Internet bodies.
1 Oct 2005 In response, UNIDT stops registration services for new TLDs .
14 Oct 2005 MANROW postpones registration services for new TLDs.
1 Nov 2005 UnifiedRoot and some other roots are created. 
10 Nov 2005 TLD-News stops releasing News and Updates.
1 Dec 2005 Tiscaly and the majority of the Turkish ISPs decide not to resolve from the Public-Root any more.
1 Jan 2006 UnifiedRoot refuses to respect most of the Legacy TLDs and becomes a renegade TLD Registrar.
15 Aug 2006 The Public-Root survives the slander campaign, that appears to be the product of a single deranged individual. As a result the entire public DNS industry suffered a severe setback.
30 Aug 2006 Charles Clark becomes director of Public-Root Ltd. and empowers the INAIC to approve and accredit new TLD Registrars.
18 Dec 2006 The INAIC approves two new TLD Registrars: UN1D and TLD.NAME 
21 Dec 2006 After over one year of silence, TLDs registrations in the Public-Root are resumed by two approved and accredited TLD Registrars: UN1D and TLD.NAME
1 Jan 2007 TLD-News resumes publishing News and Updates again.
30 Mar 2007 ICANN is turning down the application for gTLD: .XXX yet again.
15 Jan 2007 Hans Bakker (former director of Public-Root Ltd.) assembles a team of volunteers to proceed with the development of the Multilingual TLD Project.
4 Jun 2007 More TLD Registrars are approved and accredited by the INAIC.
23 Jun 2007 Large Corporations like Daimler-Chrysler are keen to register their own Corporate TLDs.
01 Aug 2007 Multilingual TLDs tests are a success. Hans Bakker presents the finished Multilingual TLD Project for testing in the Public DNS.
31 Oct 2007 UN1D is the first TLD Registrar in the world that is providing on-line multilingual TLD registration services.
10 Nov 2007 Multilingual TLDs become available through all approved and accredited TLD Registrars.