Domain Names: Directing Traffic Since 1985

By Dr. Avishai Teicher Pikiwiki Israel, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26740111 — “The Internet Messenger” sculpture by Buky Schwartz (Photo by Dr. Avishai Teaicher via Wikimedia Commons)

On this date in 1985, the first Internet domain name, symbolics.com, was registered.

Here are some things you may not have known about domain names and their history.

Domain names are what identifies resources on the Internet. TriviaPeople.com is our domain name and .com is the world’s most popular top-level domain.

Symbolics, the company that registered the first domain name, was a computer manufacturer. Founded in 1980, it focused on servers and workstations. It went bankrupt in 1996. The domain name is currently the home to a website related to Internet history.

The oldest domain name still held by the original entity is the University of California’s berkeley.edu. The oldest continuously operating commercial site is xerox.com.

Top-level domains .com, .net, and .org are available for anyone to register. .edu is restricted to American colleges and universities. .gov is for governments in the U.S., while .mil is reserved for the American military.

As mentioned earlier, .com is the most popular domain, followed by .de, for domains in Germany, .net, and .uk for sites in the United Kingdom.

Our question: What country’s domain is .ch?

Today is the Ides of March, a bad day for Julius Caesar. It’s Constitution Day in Belarus, National Day in Hungary and International Day Against Police Brutality.

Today is National Peanut Lovers Day, World Consumer Rights Day and World Social Work Day.

It’s the birthday of U.S. President Andrew Jackson, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and musician Sly Stone.

This week in 1985, the top song in the U.S. was “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon.

The No. 1 movie was “Witness,” while the novel “If Tomorrow Comes” by Sidney Sheldon topped the New York Times Bestsellers list.