Which came first, the internet (ARPANET) or Tyrannosaurus rex?
Tyrannosaurus rex came first, by 68.002 million years. T. rex lived in the last two million years of the age of dinosaurs.
Side by side
| the internet (ARPANET) | Tyrannosaurus rex | |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1969 | 68 million years ago |
| Date | 1969-10-29 | — |
| Category | technology | nature |
| What happened | The first message was sent between two networked computers. | T. rex lived in the last two million years of the age of dinosaurs. |
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.
Tyrannosaurus rex
Tyrannosaurus rex lived from about 68 to 66 million years ago, right at the end of the Cretaceous. Stegosaurus died out around 150 million years ago. That means T. rex is closer in time to us — 66 million years — than it is to Stegosaurus, by more than 20 million years. The two are routinely drawn in the same picture and never met.
Deep-time date, approximate to within a million years or so.
Common questions
- Which came first, the internet (ARPANET) or Tyrannosaurus rex?
- Tyrannosaurus rex, by 68.002 million years — 68 million years ago against 1969.
- When did the internet (ARPANET) start?
- 1969. The first message was sent between two networked computers.
- When did Tyrannosaurus rex start?
- 68 million years ago. T. rex lived in the last two million years of the age of dinosaurs.
Related pages
- sharks or Tyrannosaurus rex? sharks
- Tyrannosaurus rex or the United States? Tyrannosaurus rex
- the Great Pyramid of Giza or Tyrannosaurus rex? Tyrannosaurus rex
- pizza or Tyrannosaurus rex? Tyrannosaurus rex
- Nintendo or Tyrannosaurus rex? Tyrannosaurus rex
- Apple or the internet (ARPANET)? the internet (ARPANET)
- the internet (ARPANET) or sharks? sharks
- the internet (ARPANET) or the Great Pyramid of Giza? the Great Pyramid of Giza
- the internet (ARPANET) or the United States? the United States
- the internet (ARPANET) or Pakistan? Pakistan
- the internet (ARPANET) or India? India
- the internet (ARPANET) or pizza? pizza
Sources
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution