Exactly thirty years ago, on March 15, 1985, the first .com domain name (symbolics.com) was registered by technology company Symbolics, effectively marking the birth of the commercial Internet. But domain names began to come into use in the 1990s.
1985. Back to the Future is released in American theaters and becomes the highest-grossing film of the year. Studio Ghibli, the world-famous Japanese animation studio, is founded. Amiga personal computers are released. Super Mario Bros. is released. Steve Jobs leaves Apple. Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight. The first Nintendo consoles are released in the US.
Despite all these very great cultural, technological, and scientific developments, the Internet, as we know it today, began to be created much more slowly, with the registration of only six .com domain names in 1985. The following decade brought the real revolution after the millionth .com domain name was registered in 1997.
Remember those years? When Netscape Navigator was the most popular browser on the Internet? The following GIFs were created by The Open University based on archived pages from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
HP.com — 1997
Boeing.com — 1996
Intel.com — 1995
Apple.com — 1998
The Open University — 1997
Xerox.com — 1996
The publication was made by Gizmodo
