U.S.S.R. launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite.

In response, U.S. forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military

J.C.R. Licklider publishes his landmark paper, "Man-Computer Symbiosis"

Leonard Kleinrock, MIT: "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets". First paper on packet-switching theory

J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark, MIT: "On-Line Man Computer Communication".Galactic Network concept encompassing distributed social interactions

Licklider becomes the founding directory for ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office and the behavioral science division.

Paul Baran, RAND: "On Distributed Communications Networks" Packet-switching networks; no single outage point

Licklider funds Engelbarts new "Augmentation Research Center" at Stanford.

President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas.

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.

ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of time-sharing computers" TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and Q-32 at System Development Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are directly linked (without packet switches) (more of the story...)

ACM Symposium on Operating Principles Plan presented for a packet-switching network First design paper on ARPANET published by Lawrence G. Roberts

National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops NPL Data Network under D. W. Davies