In response to a request from the United States Department of Defense, work began on a system that would enable computers to connect and share information between universities. The first successful connection between two locations was achieved in 1969 through a system called ARPAnet, often written as ARPANET, and is considered to be the predecessor of the modern Internet. The actual start of the U.S. government-supported development of the protocols and packet-switched systems required to share information across research centers began as early as 1962 and was in response to the first successful launch of an orbiting satellite, Sputnik, by the Soviet Union in 1957.
The research originally commissioned by the U.S. government during the 1960s was intended to enable top secret military information to be safely and quickly shared across intelligence and research locations across the U.S. The first systems that were developed, however, did not begin to resemble the modern Internet until the 1980s when funding from the National Science Foundation, along with support from private and commercial interests, led to the creation of new systems that were capable of merging with other existing networks. By the 1990s, the transformation often referred to as the "commercialization" of the Internet occurred and led to its involvement in nearly every aspect of modern day-to-day life.