19891989–1993 · Meyrin, near Geneva

Invention of the World Wide Web at CERN

The NeXT computer used as the world's first web server at CERN — Photo: User:Coolcaesar at en.wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

At CERN, the particle physics laboratory on the Franco-Swiss border, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system for sharing documents between scientists in March 1989. With Robert Cailliau he built the first web browser and server, and the first website went online in 1991. CERN released the software royalty-free in 1993, allowing the web to spread worldwide.