Internet time machine / 1996

1996, kept in the archive.

Backdrop

The Internet in 1996

President Clinton and Vice President Gore install Ethernet cabling during NetDay.

Year reference

NetDay: wiring the schools

The web became public infrastructure.

Source: White House photograph via Wikimedia Commons
  • Dial-up access and web portals were turning the web from a specialist hobby into a household destination.
  • Macromedia Flash arrived, giving personal sites and tiny animations a new visual language.
Read the W3C’s web-history timeline

Archive order

Archive picks

01

Dancing Baby video preview

Meme · Email-era viral animation

Dancing Baby

A looping 3D baby became one of the web’s first global “what am I looking at?” files.

email3d animationearly internet
Archive score97