12 November 1990: Tim Berners-Lee sets out to build the World Wide Web

On this day in 1990, Sir Tim Berners-Lee set out his proposals for creating the World Wide Web.

Tim Berners Lee
Tim Berners Lee
(Image credit: © Rosdiana Ciaravolo/Getty Images)

Cern, the European nuclear research agency in Switzerland, churns out an awful lot of data, as you might expect. In March 1989, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee sent out a proposal to his colleagues bemoaning the fact that it was all too easy for information to get filed away and lost. Different departments used different computers, which ran different software, much of which was unable to talk to each other. If you found part of what you were looking for on one computer, you might have to get up and go to another computer to complete your search.

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Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

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