A beep from the universe of Sputnik 1 in the year 1957 shocked the USA and changed the world. It should become the starting point of important American scientific projects in a race in the universe to attain technological superiority and has brought out particularly innovative and numerous developments, which are civilian used then later like the Global Positioning System (GPS) as well as the Internet. It likewise accelerated the western rocket programs (Blue Streak, GB) and led to establishment the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

After the first satellite was launched by the Soviets, American's felt threat by this and thought that they could now also do bomb attacks from the space. Besides the Soviet technical achievement questioned the always surely believed claim to superiority of the west. The term "Sputnik crisis" is synonymous for the political-social reaction at that time in the USA and Western Europe on the start of the first artificial earth satellite. The causes for this "technological backlogs" of the Western Hemisphere were self-critical (particularly the USA) found predominant in the education system. The real impressive demonstration of the efficiency of the Soviet science has as well inspired the US-Strategists for more experimental plannings of new military scenarios, concepts and strategies.

As first reaction of Sputnik 1, the United States started only four months later in the early 1958 a program for strengthening co-operation and for networking of communication. So the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) then was established in February 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The agency worked for the safety from space based missile attack and should secure the crucial technological lead in the Cold War for the United States. Also in the same year followed the first US-satellite "Transit" (also called NavSat) and it was simultaneous the first satellite navigation system of the world, the forerunner of the GPS. The concrete idea Internet originally resulted from a development - on behalf of the United States Air Force starting in 1962 of a research group under the special direction of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the United States Department of Defense - for a decentralized network structure, also in case of failure several network nodes to should remain stable and efficient. The development ARPANet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network).

ARPANet was the worldwide first operational packet-switched-network and the progenitor of today's Internet. Leonard Kleinrock devised at the University of California in LA the ingenious procedure to send data in small packages over wire around the world. The "Packet Switching" is an important digital networking communications method for the realization of the ARPANet and today forms the dominating basis for worldwide data communication. Although those ARPA had financed the project for the US-Department of Defense at that time, the agency looked for methods for a networking of universities and research establishments, in order to be able to use the limited computer capacities of the expensive large mainframe computer by exchange of data meaningfully, first in the USA, later worldwide. The range of duty of ARPA was, however, not only from the outset limited to the space research, therefore in the majority civilian projects were promoted.

The myth that ARPANet had been developed in order to resist nuclear attacks demystified Kleinrock, which didn't think of nuclear conflicts during his research with a short sentence: "That is a myth". ARPA is as being the main supporter of the Internet, maybe the most important force in the course of the United States and probably world history in the computer. Today it is the tenor of history that the USA never would have grown in the computer technology the way it did without ARPA. It just explore also the role of the US-Government in building the Internet, for the simple reason that the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) was created within the ARPA in the US-Department of Defense (DoD), is therefore the early and most significant institutional of the mission Internet. In the year 1962 the ARPA brought with the IPTO an institution into being, which should huge affect the Internet of the future considerably. Working within the institution, scientists provided leadership in creating the new field of computer science and was the real birth of the Internet.

Head of the institution IPTO became 1963 Internet pioneer Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, former psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who he was active in the emerging field of human-computer interactions. A man who already dreamed 1960 in his manuscript "Man-Computer Symbiosis" of the networking between computers and humans, in a time where everything was completed over time-consuming techniques such as punch cards and magnetic tapes. Now as the director of the IPTO - the renaming of the office for computer sciences within ARPA should reflect the changes Licklider's - he initiated three of the most important developments in the information technology: Time-sharing, networking and at last the fact that in former times at no US-university could be attained a doctorate in computer science. His work justified the facility of the appropriate research basis at four of the best universities of the country.

Licklider's vision of an universal network greatly influenced his successors at the IPTO and he mostly shaped the subsequent research that led to development of the Internet. Already August of the year 1962 the legend Licklider had submitted concepts for the "Intergalactic Computer Network", contained these great ideas already nearly everything that constitutes the modern Internet today. He felt that his already presented concept of a computer network will be trend-setting and inevitable. His desired project was first rejected by the Ministry of Defense, but taken up in 1965 again and could then realized in 1969 finally. ARPA assigned the order for the building of a network at 04/07/1969 to BBN. This should work according the conceptions Licklider's to make a good balance in the information technology as well as to creating for all humans the computing strength of the computer.

When ARPANet was replaced from the Internet and the last one given freely for the non-military use (Usenet too, both formed of this beginning), it was changed over to protocol TCP/IP of the Internet. Usenet as a transport system of data is the oldest network. At the same time the UUCP was replaced by the NNTP and permitted to the first time the participation of computers with arbitrary operating system on the Usenet. The UUCP remained existing parallel and makes possible a participation on the Usenet without Internet connection till today. In 1983 the protocol TCP/IP were used in the ARPANet, whereby it became a subnet of the early Internet. The ARPANet was shut down officially 02/28/1990, then the use of internet was exploded after 1990.

Before the start of the World Wide Web in 1993, just several American online providers competed. The largest were the online pioneer CompuServe. Already in 1992 Internet access was available for common public. In contrast to the CompuServe with its meager user interface, American Online (AOL) offered an optically responding software for the entrance to its net. Internet entrance like by AOL was possible only over a proprietary software with connection to a centralized portal. Start of the World Wide Web simultaneous was a start for an emancipated net culture, because the Early Adopters got rid of the connection to centralized portals at the same time and used Internet over Web browsers - as I.

The time of the explorers was started, the World Wide Web was like a new continent on the horizon. Everything was so exciting. Not by American Online. In a time of explorer and pioneer they disavowed itself as a not serious online service in the story-books, was considered only as safe port for them who are afraid of water and discredited AOL customers overall as technical idiots. The Stigmata to be an online service for all them who aren't yet ripe for the World Wide Web, became AOL-synonym quickly. And maybe therefore the New York Times summarized 1998 a bit disappointed, however, laconically that AOL are generally appreciative as kind of protection for technical beginners.

Against it, the adventure-hungry Netscape Communications Corporation with the Netscape Navigator than their flag ship was more courageous. The product logo was well selected, a ship steering wheel. As a challenge for adventurers and discoverer, it wakes associations "Where No Man Has Gone Before" which characterizes the Star Trek series and has entered popular culture. The correct equipment for an undiscovered continent. When in 1995 the use of the World Wide Web became popular, the Netscape Navigator had already a worldwide market share from over 80 percent, until then Microsoft just negated the new Internet and didn't recognize the innovative potential of this medium. That changed fast.

After Bill Gates had decided to invest substantial into the medium Internet and develop a competition product against the Netscape Navigator, began on the evidence of this project a as the "Browser War" (1995 until 1998) ingloriously known cutthroat competition between the enterprises Microsoft and Netscape around the market power of the Web browsers. Microsoft had, however, two crucial strategic advantages in opposite to Netscape: First the enterprise had substantially more financial resources, secondly they could by the additional integration of Internet Explorer in Windows which was installed at that time on 95 percent of all new sold computers, the market share rapidly increase.

Netscape had lost the technology leadership, it was a dramatically case. Far more seriously than the loss of the technology leadership - if Netscape had actually developed later to a serious competitor - was the great characteristic, that the Netscape Communicator contained a set of programming interfaces (APIs) witch could be used by developers to create own programs and could run on the basis from Netscape. Indeed, on Netscape side also were erroneous trends in the light of unassailable leads in their market share, approximately with the extension (Version 4) with functions for online purchase and doubtful search assistance with privacy-legal doubts, instead of really repairing critical errors.

The Netscape Communicator 4.5 should become in 1998 again a new start, but after the assumption of Netscape by American online only one month later was questioned everything again, because there were to much doubts about the seriousness of AOL to resume the development of the Netscape browser, after the service had already shown its serious occurrence in the new Internet world. Netscape had simply not earned this.