The ARPAnet, previously DARPAnet, was the product of fear. The name is an acronym for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It was the first large area network based on packet switching. The first node came online on September 1, 1969, and by March 1977 there were 111 computers connected to the ARPAnet. It was retired in 1990.
The Soviet Union beat the United States in sending a living being into space with Sputnik in 1957, carrying the dog Laika. The US military peed themselves at the realization that Russia could reach American cities from outer space, raining down upon them unknowable numbers of dogs. Or nuclear weapons. Eisenhower directed the MIT’s president, James Killian, to devise a survivable computer network to enable communication in the event Something Bad happened. Seven years, and several grad students, later, the ARPAnet was born. It utilized packets instead of direct data transfer, which enabled different kinds of computers to communicate. This protocol is the basis of the Internet we all know and love.
http://www.darpa.mil/history.html
http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_arpanet.htm
http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_imp.htm
http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_darpa.htm
http://www.space.com/news/laika_anniversary_991103.html
