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Year
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Highlight
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1623
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Wilhelm Schickard built the first machine that could automatically add, subtract, multiply, and divide. He called it a "calculating clock."
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1946
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The first electronic, programmable, general-purpose computer was invented. It was called ENIAC, for "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer."
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1967
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The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) allotted money toward creating a computer network. It became ARPAnet, which evolved into the Internet.
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1968
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The first hypertext system was built by Douglas Engelbart of Stanford Research Institute. Called NLS (oN Line System), the system's design allowed users to move text and data with a mouse (which Engelbart invented in 1963).
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1971
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The "floppy disk" was introduced by IBM as a means of affordable portable storage.
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1975
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The Altair 8800 entered the market. It was the first widely sold personal microcomputer.
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1975
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Microsoft was founded by 20-year-old Bill Gates and 22-year-old Paul Allen. Ten years later, they released the first version of Windows.
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1977
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The Apple II, Apple's first fully packaged system with a keyboard, was introduced.
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1990
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The World Wide Web was first launched with one server by British physicist Tim Berners-Lee. He also created Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
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2002
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The 1 billionth personal computer was shipped to stores in April, according to research firm Gartner.
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