---
title: "Which came first, the internet (ARPANET) or Star Wars?"
description: "the internet (ARPANET) vs Star Wars: the internet (ARPANET) came first, by 8 years — 1969 against 1977. What happened in each case."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-star-wars/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the internet (ARPANET) or Star Wars?

**Which came first, the internet (ARPANET) or Star Wars?: the internet (ARPANET)**

1969 — 8 years before Star Wars

the internet (ARPANET) came first, by 8 years. The first message was sent between two networked computers.

## Side by side

|  | the internet (ARPANET) | Star Wars |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1969 | 1977 |
| Date | 1969-10-29 | 1977-05-25 |
| Category | technology | media |
| What happened | The first message was sent between two networked computers. | The first film opened in 32 American cinemas. |

## 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.

## Star Wars

Star Wars opened in May 1977 on fewer than forty screens because the distributor had little faith in it, and it went on to be the highest-grossing film made to that point. Fox let Lucas keep the merchandising and sequel rights in exchange for a lower directing fee, a decision that transferred an extraordinary amount of money. It is eleven years younger than Star Trek.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the internet (ARPANET) or Star Wars?

the internet (ARPANET), by 8 years — 1969 against 1977.

### When did the internet (ARPANET) start?

1969. The first message was sent between two networked computers.

### When did Star Wars start?

1977. The first film opened in 32 American cinemas.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]