The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of private, academic and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic and optical networking technologies; the Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web, electronic mail and file sharing. The origins of the Internet date back to the development of packet switching and research commissioned by the United States Department of Defense in the 1960s to enable time-sharing of mainframe computers; the primary precursor network, the ARPANET served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1970s. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, the merger of many networks.

The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, generated a sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional and mobile computers were connected to the network. Although the Internet was used by academia in the 1980s, commercialization incorporated its services and technologies into every aspect of modern life. Most traditional communication media, including telephony, television, paper mail and newspapers are reshaped, redefined, or bypassed by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as email, Internet telephony, Internet television, online music, digital newspapers, video streaming websites. Newspaper and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators; the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, social networking. Online shopping has grown exponentially both for major retailers and small businesses and entrepreneurs, as it enables firms to extend their "brick and mortar" presence to serve a larger market or sell goods and services online.

Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries. The Internet has no single centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; the overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address space and the Domain Name System, are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force, a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise. In November 2006, the Internet was included on USA Today's list of New Seven Wonders; when the term Internet is used to refer to the specific global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, the word is a proper noun according to the Chicago Manual of Style that should be written with an initial capital letter.

In common use and the media, it is not capitalized, viz. the internet. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, but not capitalized when used as an adjective; the Internet is often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. As early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, meaning interconnected or interwoven; the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are used interchangeably in everyday speech. However, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services; the Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. The term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user; the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense funded research into time-sharing of computers in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, research into packet switching, one of the fundamental Internet technologies, started in the work of Paul Baran in the early 1960s and, Donald Davies in 1965. Packet switching was incorporated into the proposed design for the ARPANET in 1967 and other packet-switched networks such as the NPL network, the Merit Network, CYCLADES were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. ARPANET development began with two network nodes which were interconnected between the Network Measurement Center at the University of California, Los Angeles Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science directed by Leonard Kleinrock, the NLS system at SRI International by Douglas Engelbart in Menlo Park, California, on 29 October 1969; the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics Department. In a sign of future growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971.

These early yea

Jørgen Christian Knudsen was a Norwegian ship-owner and politician for the Conservative Party. He was born at Saltrø in Stokken as Guro Knudsen, née Aadnesdatter; the family bought the farm Frednes in Eidanger in 1854, moved there. Jørgen Christian Knudsen had one sister Elen Serine, who married Johan Jeremiassen, one brother Gunnar. Gunnar Knudsen would become Prime Minister of Norway for the Liberal Party. In 1867 Jørgen Christian Knudsen married Marie Henriette Resch, daughter of Captain Hagbarth Resch, they settled at Frednes farm. In 1868 they had the son Finn Christian Knudsen, in 1873 the son Christen Knudsen. A daughter married Robert Rafn, their daughter Gunda married the British diplomat Christopher Lintrup Paus. Knudsen was a notable ship-owner, running the company J. G. Knudsen with his brother Gunnar, he was a shipbuilder and factory owner. The partnership with his brother ended in 1889, Knudsen ran his own company; the company was passed down to his sons Finn and Christen, split between them in 1923.

One of Knudsen's best known ships was the Skomvær, for a time the largest sailing ship in Norway. He was the mayor of Porsgrund municipality in 1893, vice mayor in 1891, 1892, 1894 and 1895, he was elected to the city council for the first time in 1877. He represented the city in the Parliament of Norway, where he advocated and defended the union with Sweden, he was elected from the constituency Porsgrund in 1880, 1883, 1886, 1892, 1895, 1898 and 1904. For the first five terms he was a member of the Standing Committee on Justice the Standing Committee on the Army. In his last term he chaired the Standing Committee on Railways, he was a deputy member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee from the beginning in 1897, to 1909. He was a supervisory council member of the Bank of Norway

Parengaope was a Māori high chieftainess of Ngāti Koura, a hapū of the Waikato tribal confederation. She was the wife of Te Rauangaanga and mother of Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, the first Māori king and grandmother of King Tāwhiao. Parengaope was born at Te Rapa pā near present-day Hamilton, she was a direct descendant of Hotumauea, a noted war chief of Ngāti Koura, an outstanding warrior and acquired vast tracts of land within the Waikato basin. Her father was Tokohihi, his father was Pakaruwakanui, the son of Hotumauea, her mother was Paretewa, the mother of Paretewa was Kuiatu. She was present during the battle of Matakitaki in 1822 at Pirongia when the musket-armed northern Ngāpuhi tribes under Hongi Hika attacked the Waikato tribes. Parengaope escaped along with other members of Potatau's family during the attack on Matakitaki