Soviet Union adopts a multi-party system and Iraq attacks Kuwait. The two Germanies become one.

Video: MPEG-1 file (40MB) Tim Berners-Lee remembers the creation of the WWW (in English) Tim Berners-Lee's updated proposal, "WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project" is approved by CERN. Prototype versions of a graphic WWW browser-editor for the NeXT computer and of a line mode interface that works on all terminals are produced, i.e. the Web is born.

The NIC.FUNET.FI FTP archive for freely distributable files is set up. One model for this was the ARPANET's Network Information Center, the NIC.DDN.MIL server, which distributed Internet documents, but the service was later extended to become one of the world's biggest archives of public-domain software, partly through the popularity of Linux. The prototype Internet network ARPANET set up in 1969, with network address 10.0.0.0, is officially shut down. The HP48SX pocket calculator with its KERMIT-protocol communications feature is released The file-finder program Archie, the remote-login library-database index HyTelnet and the OSI protocol development environment ISODE are released. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) pressure group is set up to defend network users' rights, such as freedom of speech and protection of privacy.

Video: Internet, Web, What's Next conference, CERN, Geneve, 26.6.1998 (2 Mbit/s MPEG-1)