1990    Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

1990    The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web.

1991    Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.

1993    CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.

1994    San Francisco: First conference that focuses exclusively on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web.