For those who don't understand the distinction between the net (Internet) and the web (World Wide Web), the net is the physical network, while the web is a particular manner of using it, via browsers, URLs, the HTTP protocol, and the HTML markup language. The net existed long before the web did.
A brief timeline:
1969: ARPAnet, the predecessor of the Internet, is created as a U.S. military research project. Intended uses early on mostly involve accessing remote computers to allow academic projects to be run on distant machines.
1970s: E-mail is invented and proves to be a popular application. Other protocols developed include FTP (for file transfer) and Telnet (for remote logins).
1979: Usenet newsgroups begin; they are originally distributed via UUCP protocol between Unix computers, mostly by dialup phone lines, and not connected to the Internet; much later, they start being distributed via Internet protocols and hence are now regarded as part of the 'Net.
1983: Basic protocol of the network is changed to TCP/IP, a newly developed set of protocols to allow the interconnection of diverse networks. The term "Internet" begins in use at the time to describe this network conglomeration, of which the ARPAnet is the major backbone. Discussions begin for the creation of a new structured naming system to replace the flat hostname table in use up to now, where every system needs to have a hosts.txt file with all other systems listed.
1985: Domain names begin. There is no charge to register them, but you're expected to actually have a physical network, and to register only one domain per organization (using subdomains / hosts for sites within the organization) and to register within the appropriate TLD for type of organization. These rules are mostly observed for the next ten years until they break down under increasing commercialization.
1989: The National Science Foundation has taken over the Internet backbone by now, and the ARPAnet has been retired. The NSF changes its rules which formerly barred commercial activity altogether, and the beginnings of commercial exploitation of the 'Net start to be seen. Early commercial use is mostly for email exchange; users of online services like CompuServe and AOL can now send mail to one another and to academic Internet users.
1990: Tim Berners Lee launches the first World Wide Web server at the European physics laboratory CERN, and announces it on newsgroups. Academics slowly begin to use it.
1991: The Gopher protocol is introduced at the University of Minnesota (home of the Golden Gophers); for a few years, this text-based menu system for accessing Internet information is more popular than the Web.
1992: The first version of Mosaic is released, a graphical browser that is the first to support inline images.
1993-1994: Gradually, some people outside academic circles start to notice the Web and think it's a neat idea.
1995: The Web explodes into the popular notice with lots of magazines, newspapers, and TV shows doing features on it, and the popular online services begin to make it available. Netscape 1.0 is released and soon becomes the most popular browser. Domain name speculation begins, with the first few cybersquatting disputes erupting, and Network Solutions (which has managed to get a monopoly over domains) begins charging a fee for registration and stops attempting to enforce any limitations on .com registrations (.net and .org will soon follow).
And the rest is history... you now get into the recent years which will be more familiar to newcomers.
