Birthplace of the Web – Meyrin, Switzerland - Atlas Obscura
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Birthplace of the Web

Meyrin, Switzerland

The World Wide Web was created in this nondescript corridor at CERN. 

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Where the web was born. Fox Wu (cc by 2.0)
Where the web was born. Fox Wu (cc by 2.0)
The corridor where the web was born. EdgarMedina (Atlas Obscura User)
Corridor where the WWW was born. Ádám Szedlák (cc by 2.0)
The computer Tim Berners-Lee used while creating the WWW. Henry Mühlpfordt (cc by-sa 2.0)
The computer Tim Berners-Lee used while at CERN. Robert Scoble (cc by 2.0)
Berners-Lee's proposal for the web. Juan Manuel Caicedo Carvajal (cc by-sa 2.0)
Birthplace of the WWW. EdgarMedina (Atlas Obscura User)
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It may look like any other hallway, but look closely and you’ll notice a historical plaque commemorating a monumental event in digital history: the birth of the web.

The World Wide Web was invented in 1989 by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee. The web, though omnipresent in the age of the internet, was originally meant to be a communication tool for scientists scattered at universities and other institutes around the world.

Berners-Lee was working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, when he developed the world’s first website. Though simple in appearance, this amazing technological feat revolutionized how we share and store information.

The first website was dedicated entirely to itself: a white page bearing nothing but typed hyperlinks. It described the WWW project, as well as core features of the web like how to set up a server and access documents. It was hosted on Berners-Lee’s NeXT computer, which is still at CERN. In 1993, CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain.

Interestingly, Berners-Lee faced some pushback for his invention, as some at CERN believed it was a waste of resources and wasn’t part of the organization’s core mission. Now, however, the organization at least marks the corridor where the web was born.

Know Before You Go

This is inside one if the CERN office buildings and not normally accessible to visitors.

internet inventors computers inventions universities plaques technology
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