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The Web History Timeline Project

This morning, I was honoured to take part in the first “Web Behind”, a new segment of the great Web Forward podcast, with Jen Simmons and Eric Meyer. The audio should be online soon.

During that, I announced a little project I’ve been working on, using the fantastic Timeline.js from Verite.

The goal is to bring together some of the most important milestones in the history of the web, whether they’re

  • the publication of seminal articles and books;
  • the publication of important standards and RFCs;
  • the release of important software (browsers, servers, tools, libraries;)
  • significant events, such as the founding of the W3C.

My goal is not to document the entire history of the web – the founding of Boo.com, for example is likely to be beyond the scope of what I have in mind. But, if it’s had a significant impact on the way we build the web, it belongs here.

You can take a look at it now, but it is very much a work in progress. Which is where you come in. I’d love your suggestions for significant milestones in the history of web design and development. To make it easy to suggest milestones you think should be remembered, just fill in and submit the form below. The more detail (particularly dates and relevant images) you can provide the better. I can’t promise it will all make it in, but if it fits the criteria, it will!
Or, just suggest an event in the comments.

Thanks in advance for your help, and hopefully together we can build a really valuable resource.

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