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Happy 20th Birthday, Web! On August 6, 1991, MIT professor, computer scientist and physicist Tim Berners-Lee posted a brief summary of his World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup, essentially going public with the schematics for the flux capacitor which makes time-travel possible in this DeLorean we now know as the Internet.
Had this key date passed without incident, we would likely be using pens to write to ourselves, calling travel agents on a telephone, sharing CDs with our neighbors by hand, stalking the old fashioned way, buying pornography from stores, and shooting videos of our cats that no one would ever see. It's sad and exhausting just to think about.
Gizmodo has a juicy history for your nerding-out pleasure.