mundaneum
A visionary project by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine aiming to collect and interlink the world's knowledge through a network of documents, predating the Web by decades.
1 chapter across 1 book
100 Ideas that Changed the Web (2014)Jim Boulton
The chapter introduces the history of the Web through 100 key ideas, beginning with early visionary projects like the Mundaneum by Paul Otlet, which anticipated many aspects of the modern Web including semantic linking and global knowledge networks. It then traces foundational internet technologies developed during the Cold War era, such as packet switching, ARPANET, hypertext inspired by Vannevar Bush, the modem's role in connecting computers socially, and the graphical user interface that made computing accessible to a wider audience, setting the stage for the Web's global adoption.