Information & communication

An editorial selection for comparing processes, events, and lives. The interval and counts describe selected records, not the historical boundaries or importance of the subject.

Canonical records: 64
Events: 43
People: 2
Processes and periods: 19

Compare in the atlas Selection criteria and limits

Topics represented

Information & communication (35) · Infrastructure (35) · Technology (35) · Oceans, navigation & cartography (20) · Nautical cartography (11) · Empire, trade & power (6) · Institutions & standards (6) · Hydrography & bathymetry (5) · Ocean navigation (4) · Indigenous knowledge (3) · War & military technology (3) · British Empire (3)

View distribution by region and period

Canonical records by regional label and start date. These are numerical analysis bins, not universal historical periods. A multi-region record appears in multiple rows; do not add rows as a unique-record total.
Region	Before 3000 BCE	3000–1 BCE	1–1499	1500–1799	1800–1899	1900–1999	Since 2000
Africa	0	0	6	3	0	0	0
Americas	0	0	0	4	1	1	2
Asia	0	0	7	0	0	0	1
Europe	0	2	5	7	1	2	2
Oceania	0	0	0	2	1	0	0
Global / no specific region	1	0	3	5	5	18	15

Records and sources

Ordered by start date. Long lives and processes may begin before the period you want to study.

1919–1921
Hydrographic cooperation gains a permanent institution
A conference of 24 nations agreed in London in 1919 to create a permanent body, and the International Hydrographic Bureau began work in Monaco in 1921. It sought to coordinate offices and standardize charts and documents; since 1970 it has operated under the International Hydrographic Organization convention.
c. 1920
Regular radio broadcasting
Regular radio broadcasts opened a mass-communication medium based on wireless signals. The first stations and definitions of “regular” vary by country.
1936
Regular high-definition television
The BBC began regular high-definition television broadcasts from Alexandra Palace in 1936 for the London area. The milestone marks television’s formation as a scheduled broadcast medium; initial reception was limited, and mass expansion depended on later networks, affordable sets, and programming.
1948
Shannon’s mathematical theory of communication
Claude Shannon published “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” formalizing measures of information, coding, and noise for communication systems. The theory abstracts away message meaning: it describes signal capacity and transmission, not the social, cultural, or political meaning of information by itself.
1957–1977
Tharp and Heezen make seafloor relief visible
The 1957 physiographic map of the Atlantic and later syntheses by Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen turned scattered profiles into a continuous picture of ridges, valleys, and abyssal plains. The mapping helped interpret plate tectonics and culminated in a 1977 world ocean-floor map.
1962
Telstar and satellite communications
Telstar 1 relayed television, telephone calls, data, and facsimiles between continents. Its operation was brief, but it showed satellites could extend the global reach of networks.
1969
ARPANET connects heterogeneous computers
ARPANET began operating in late 1969 as a general-purpose network connecting different kinds of computers. It was an important technical predecessor of the Internet, not the complete Internet itself.
c. 1971
Networked email
Email moved from timesharing systems onto computer networks and adopted the @ sign on ARPANET. It shifted written messages toward direct digital exchange among people and groups.
1983
ARPANET adopts TCP/IP
ARPANET standardized on TCP/IP in January 1983. Adopting common protocols enabled different networks to interconnect and is a conventional step toward the interoperable Internet.
1989
World Wide Web proposal
Tim Berners-Lee proposed a distributed linked-information system at CERN. The Web was built on the Internet and added URLs, HTTP, and HTML for navigating connected documents.
1991
GSM and interoperable digital mobile telephony
The first GSM call was made in Finland in 1991 after European technical standardization. GSM combined digital voice, SMS, and later data, facilitating interoperability and roaming; its worldwide adoption depended on spectrum licensing, operators, prices, and local networks.
1991
The Web is announced beyond CERN
Berners-Lee announced World Wide Web software on Internet newsgroups in August 1991. The project began spreading beyond its original scientific community.
1993
Release of the Web into the public domain
CERN placed World Wide Web software in the public domain in 1993 and later distributed it under an open licence. This decision lowered barriers to using and modifying servers and browsers, but did not mean material access to networks or computers was equally available.
c. 1995
Web indexes and search engines
During the 1990s, directories and full-text indexes such as AltaVista turned the growing Web into information retrievable by queries. Ranking results became a decisive layer of information mediation, but no index was exhaustive or neutral with respect to language, links, design, or commercial interests.
1998
ICANN and Internet identifier coordination
ICANN’s creation formalized multistakeholder coordination of domain names and other unique Internet identifiers. That technical coordination helps names resolve to interoperable resources worldwide, but it does not decide network content or eliminate disputes over Internet governance.
1998
PageRank and link-based Web search ranking
Brin and Page’s paper described a search-engine prototype that combined text with hyperlink structure to rank results. It made links a signal of relevance in search; that signal alone is not equivalent to a source’s truth, quality, or diversity of viewpoint.
1999–2026
Argo observes the ocean interior globally
Since 1999–2000, the international Argo program has deployed autonomous floats that profile temperature and salinity to about 2,000 meters and transmit open data. The array reached 3,000 active floats in 2007 and continues expanding toward polar seas, deep water, and biogeochemical variables.
2000–2018
Electronic charts become a navigation standard
In 2000 the IMO accepted ECDIS as meeting chart-carriage requirements, and in 2009 it adopted phased mandatory requirements for specified ships. The transition integrated charts, position, and notices into a digital system dependent on updated official data, training, and backup procedures.
2001
Wikipedia and editable collaborative knowledge
Wikipedia launched in January 2001 as an encyclopedia built and revised through open collaboration. The model widened opportunities to produce, correct, and reuse public knowledge, while making traceability, community rules, sources, and critical assessment of each article central.
2003–2005
World Summit on the Information Society
The WSIS Geneva and Tunis phases put access, digital divides, and Internet governance on an international agenda. The Tunis Agenda recognized that the network had become a global facility and proposed multistakeholder dialogue; it did not definitively settle who should make all decisions about network resources and policy.
c. 2004–c. 2006
Consolidation of the participatory social Web
In the mid-2000s, blogs, wikis, and social networks made user publishing, profiles, and exchange more visible as platform functions. “Web 2.0” was a broad, contested label rather than a single new technical version of the Internet; later platforms combined participation with their own data, advertising, and moderation models.
c. 2007–c. 2024
Mobile-broadband infrastructure and access gap
Mobile broadband shifted from marginal service to central Internet-access infrastructure. In 2024, the ITU estimated that mobile-broadband subscriptions were approaching cellular-phone subscriptions, but coverage, affordability, and use remained highly unequal across rural and urban areas and income levels.
2007
Smartphone as a communication platform
The 2007 iPhone popularized a smartphone model with touch input and mobile Web browsing for a broad audience. It represents convergence of phone, browser, camera, and applications, not the origin of smartphones or an identical access experience across countries and social groups.
c. 2010–c. 2018
Algorithmically selected social feeds
During the 2010s, many social platforms moved toward ranking and prioritizing content through programs using data about each user. This mechanism changed which messages could gain visibility and introduced issues of transparency, bias, and misinformation; algorithms do not eliminate choices by users, moderators, or human editors.
2010
Stuxnet disclosure and malware against industrial control systems
In 2010, technical advisories documented Stuxnet and mitigations for Siemens industrial-control environments. The case showed that malicious software could interact with physical industrial systems and accelerated debates on cybersecurity, sabotage, and interstate conflict. Public attribution, exact targets, and strategic effects do not follow from the technical advisory alone; this entry avoids assigning responsibility or making the episode the definitive “first” case of cyberwar.
2012
Permanent IPv6 deployment
World IPv6 Launch coordinated providers, websites, and manufacturers to enable IPv6 permanently. The new protocol expanded the address space of Internet infrastructure and coexisted with IPv4 through an uneven transition, so it was not an instant change for every network or user.
2013
UN addresses privacy in the digital age
The General Assembly adopted resolution 68/167 on the right to privacy in the digital age. It linked expanding communication technologies to capacities for surveillance, interception, and data collection, and called for review of practices and safeguards; it was an international position, not a rule enforceable uniformly in every state.
2016–2018
EU GDPR and personal-data protection
The European Union adopted the General Data Protection Regulation in 2016, applicable from 2018. It established a common framework for personal-data processing and obligations for controllers and processors within its scope; its extraterritorial reach and practical enforcement depend on specific legal and supervisory conditions.
2016
NATO recognizes cyberspace as an operational domain
At the 2016 Warsaw Summit, Allied states recognized cyberspace as a domain of operations in which NATO needed to be able to defend itself, alongside land, sea, and air. It is an institutional Alliance decision, not a universal classification or automatic authorization for any cyber response. Its implementation depended on national capabilities, political decisions, legal norms, and coordination among Allies.
2017
WannaCry and interconnected-system dependency
The May 2017 WannaCry ransomware campaign affected connected systems in many countries and prompted technical response alerts. The episode showed how vulnerabilities, software maintenance, and service continuity are linked in information infrastructure; it does not show that every affected organization shared the same cause or level of preparedness.