1980 : NSFNET: The first internet backbone

During the 1980s, the National Science Network funded several supercomputing centers around the United States. And in 1986 the agency created a TCP/IP-based network called NSFNET to link those supercomputing centers together and allow researchers across the country to use them. The primary goal was to allow computer science researchers to log into the supercomputers and perform academic research. But NSF decided not to limit NSFNET to that purpose, allowing the network to be used for a wide variety of academic purposes. As a result, the NSFNET became the internet's "backbone," the high-speed, long-distance network that allowed different parts of the internet to communicate. Schools that didn't have a direct connection to the NSFNET worked together to build regional networks that linked them to each other and to the nearest NSF node. This shows the NSFNET as it existed in 1992. By this time, there were 6,000 networks connected to NSFNET, with a third of them located overseas. That meant that students and faculty at a growing number of universities had access to email, Usenet, and even a recently-invented application called the World Wide Web. And although the NSFNET was officially restricted to non-commercial use, for-profit companies were increasingly connecting to the network as well, setting the stage for the commercialization of the internet that followed.