Arpanet - Advanced Research Projects Agency Networks

Forerunner of the Internet created by the United States military during the cold war. ARPANET was designed by its founders to be a military command and control center that could withstand nuclear attack.

ARPANET's founders designed it so that authority was distributed over a large number of geographically dispersed computers. This concept of a computer network with distributed authority is the basis of the Internet.

Theoretically, if 90% of the Internet were destroyed by nuclear attack, the remaining servers would be able to continue on--assuming that all life on Earth were not obliterated.

Over time the defense-oriented purpose of the Internet was broadened to include research and development, universities and education, and recently, commerce.