Systems

World Wide Web

Also Known As WWW

Citation Formats

General Reference

Computing Atlas. "World Wide Web." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/world-wide-web.

APA Style

Computing Atlas. (n.d.). World Wide Web. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/world-wide-web

BibTeX

@misc{computingatlas-world-wide-web,
  author = {Computing Atlas},
  title = {World Wide Web},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/world-wide-web},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The World Wide Web is a system for sharing and linking documents over the internet, proposed by Tim Berners Lee at CERN in 1989 and made real in 1990 and 1991 through the first web browser, the first web server, and the HTTP protocol and HTML markup language he defined for them. Unlike earlier proprietary online information systems, the web was released royalty free and open to anyone, a decision credited with much of its rapid worldwide adoption through the 1990s.

Facts

Year

1991 1

Berners Lee proposed the system in 1989 and made it publicly available in 1991; both years appear in accounts, with 1991 marking the point it became reachable outside CERN.

Significance

An open, royalty free system for linking documents over the internet, credited with driving the internet's rapid worldwide adoption through the 1990s. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections