CERN was the birthplace of the World Wide Web. British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee developed the Web while working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, near Geneva, Switzerland.
In March 1989, Berners-Lee proposed a system for linking and sharing information across CERN’s many computers. He later worked with Belgian engineer Robert Cailliau to refine the idea. By the end of 1990, CERN had the first web server, browser, and website running.
The Web is often confused with the Internet. The Internet is the underlying global network, while the Web is a system of linked pages and resources that uses that network. CERN also helped the Web spread by placing its underlying technology in the public domain in 1993, allowing anyone to use it without licensing fees.
The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, was founded later, in 1994, to develop Web standards. It helped guide the Web’s evolution but was not its birthplace.