--- title: "Which came first, Amazon or the internet (ARPANET)?" description: "Amazon vs the internet (ARPANET): the internet (ARPANET) came first, by 25 years — 1969 against 1994. What happened in each case." url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/amazon-vs-arpanet/ site: "At One Place" --- # Which came first, Amazon or the internet (ARPANET)? **Which came first, Amazon or the internet (ARPANET)?: the internet (ARPANET)** 1969 — 25 years before Amazon the internet (ARPANET) came first, by 25 years. The first message was sent between two networked computers. ## Side by side | | Amazon | the internet (ARPANET) | | --- | --- | --- | | Year | 1994 | 1969 | | Date | 1994-07-05 | 1969-10-29 | | Category | technology | technology | | What happened | Jeff Bezos incorporated the company in Washington state. | The first message was sent between two networked computers. | ## Amazon Amazon was incorporated on 5 July 1994, originally as Cadabra, and the website opened in July 1995 selling only books. The 1994 incorporation date is used here because it is the company's own founding date; if you mean the shop, 1995 is the answer. Either way it predates Google by three or four years and eBay by about a year. ## the internet (ARPANET) On 29 October 1969 a team at UCLA tried to send the word "login" to Stanford. The system crashed after two characters, so the first message ever sent over the internet's ancestor was "lo". By the end of that year the network had four nodes. The internet is twenty years older than the Web, and confusing the two is the single most common error in this whole subject. ## Common questions ### Which came first, Amazon or the internet (ARPANET)? the internet (ARPANET), by 25 years — 1969 against 1994. ### When did Amazon start? 1994. Jeff Bezos incorporated the company in Washington state. ### When did the internet (ARPANET) start? 1969. The first message was sent between two networked computers. ## Related pages - [Apple or the internet (ARPANET)?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-arpanet/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or sharks?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-sharks/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or Tyrannosaurus rex?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-t-rex/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or the Great Pyramid of Giza?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-great-pyramid/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or the United States?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-united-states/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or Pakistan?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-pakistan/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or India?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-india/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or pizza?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-pizza/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or Nintendo?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-nintendo/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or Microsoft?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-microsoft/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or email?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-email/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or the Macintosh?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-macintosh/) ## Sources - Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]