Introduction
This is the second article in today's trifecta. My friend, JC, had never mentioned to me what follows until I read his email.
Ten years before folks had wide use of the Internet, my friend wrote over several months the user manual for the ARPANET. It was during his early years in the U.S. Air Force. He emailed about it Friday evening. I saw and read his email yesterday morning. I enjoyed doing some research early that morning while drinking coffee and awaiting breakfast. Mrs. Appalachian Irishman makes a country breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays. Thanks, dear!
ARPANET: The Ancestor to the Internet
ARPANET is the acronym for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. The project started in the late 1960s.
You are welcome to click the link to the U.S. Department of Defense: Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to learn what I did. I had never before heard of the ARPANET!
Numerous websites include factual details. The Internet Hall of Fame has a good article, A Brief History of the Internet (by Barry M. Leiner, Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, and Stephen Wolff), published in 1997.
My good friend, JC, in his early days in the U.S. Air Force, wrote the user manual for the ARPANET! My friend is one of many who pioneered the eventual creation of the Internet! That is impressive!
My good friend will appreciate that I place his verified (by his credible word) contribution to the eventual creation of the Internet into the context of my next section. I must engage in “poly-ticks” for a while!
Al Gore Did Not Take “the Initiative in Creating the Internet.”
On 3/8/1999, when my wife and I were still living in Russia, Al Gore, the former senator from Tennessee and former vice president, stated to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” (Sources: the link here and below to The Washington Post.)
Al Gore's statement to The Washington Post was fact-checked. See “A Cautionary Tale for Politicians: Al Gore and the ‘Invention’ of the Internet,” by Glenn Kessler, The Fact Checker, 11/4/2013.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Defense Department commissioned the ARPANET in 1969. Al Gore was 21 (born on 3/31/1948). At the time, he was attending Vanderbilt University law school. Eventually, Al Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, eight years after the ARPANET was created. Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Al-Gore.
History.com has at least two interesting articles about the invention of the Internet. First, see Who Invented the Internet? (by Evan Andrews, updated 10/28/2019, original 12/18/2013). Further, there is The Invention of the Internet (by history.com editors, updated 10/28/2019, original 7/30/2010).
To his credit, however, Al Gore was one of 33 total 2012 Internet Hall of Fame inductees. He was one of the nine who were inducted as Global Connectors. Source: https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees/2012. Al Gore took initiative to help create the federal government's spending of taxpayer dollars to enhance the Internet that already existed. His inductee page is https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees/al-gore.
Conservative folks from around this part of Tennessee are not proud to call Al Gore a native son of Tennessee. He is a member of the “Socialist Utopian Propagandists,” as I call the ilk. He does not represent conservative values in Tennessee.
Conclusion
When someone asks you if you know about the ARPANET, you can now answer, “Yes.” I can too. In fact, just for fun, go around for the next few days asking folks if they know about the ARPANET! I may do so.
Thanks, JC, for your Friday evening email. It made for good reading the next morning! I am proud that you had an early role in helping create what would become the Internet. That was as opposed to Al Gore, whose lie on that topic is known!
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