1450
1567
1791
1996
2002
2010
2013
2020
2021
25

Celebrate the Internet Archive's 25th Anniversary!

As the Internet Archive turns 25, we invite you on a journey from way back to way forward, through the pivotal moments when knowledge became more accessible for all. On this anniversary page you can:

But first, go way back to 1996 when a young computer scientist named Brewster Kahle dreamed of building a “Library of Everything” for the digital age. A library containing all the published works of humankind, free to the public, built to last the ages. He named this digital library the Internet Archive. Its mission: to provide everyone with “Universal Access to All Knowledge.”

Read Brewster’s reflections on this 25 year milestone

Key Moments in Access to Knowledge

7th
cen.
BCE
2021
7th
cen.
BCE
Explore
Collection
The world’s oldest library is founded in Mesopotamia
8th–4th
BCE
Explore
Collection
The Upanishads, foundation of Hinduism, are composed in Southern Asia
2nd
cen.
BCE
Explore
Collection
Parchment is invented in Pergamon

303
Explore
Collection
Diocletian orders the destruction of Christian texts

400
Explore
Collection
Buddhism’s Diamond Sutra appears in Chinese translation

1450
Explore
Collection
Gutenberg invents the Europe’s first printing press

1567
Explore
Collection
Philip II commands the suppression of Arabic across Spain

1611
Explore
Collection
The King James Bible is published
Dec
15
1791
Explore
Collection
The First Amendment is adopted in America

1824
Explore
Collection
Braille is invented

1833
Explore
Collection
The first US tax-supported public library is established

1891
Explore
Collection
School attendance is made compulsory for all Native American children

1933
Explore
Collection
Books are burned across Nazi Germany

1969
Explore
Collection
The Supreme Court rules that the right to information is fundamental

1971
Explore
Collection
The first ebook is created by Project Gutenberg

1989
Explore
Collection
Sir Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web
Feb
8
1996
Explore
Collection
John Perry Barlow issues a Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
Oct
1996
Go
Wayback
Internet Archive crawlers capture first web pages, including MTV

1996
Go
Wayback
Brewster Kahle founds the Internet Archive
Aug
1
2000
Go
Wayback
Library of Congress and Internet Archive establish the U.S. Election 2000 Web Archive
Dec
30
2000
Explore
Collection
Rick Prelinger establishes the Internet Archive’s first moving image collection
Jan
15
2001
Go
Wayback
Wikipedia is launched
Oct
11
2001
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive establishes the 9/11 Television News Archive
Oct
24
2001
Go
Wayback
Wayback Machine unveiled at the University of California at Berkeley

2001
Explore
Collection
Computer Scientist, Raj Reddy, launches Million Book Project
Aug
1
2002
Explore
Collection
Collaborating with Etree, the Internet Archive’s Live Music Archive goes online
Oct
9
2002
Go
Wayback
Internet Bookmobile arrives at the Supreme Court for Eldred vs. Ashcroft
Jul
1
2003
Go
Wayback
The Internet Archive helps establish the International Internet Preservation Consortium

2004
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive builds its own server/storage system dubbed Petabox
Nov
5
2005
Go
Wayback
Internet Archive launches Archive-it web archiving service
Jul
16
2007
Go
Wayback
Aaron Swartz announces launch of Open Library

2007
Go
Wayback
Internet Archive receives National Security Letter from the FBI
Apr
13
2008
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive offers free Ultra High-Speed Internet to SF Public Housing
Apr
7
2010
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive & Princeton University make federal court records freely available
Apr
9
2010
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive partners with NASA to digitize historical images
May
6
2010
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive makes 1 million books freely available to people with print disabilities
Jan
4
2011
Explore
Collection
Brewster Kahle receives the Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award
Feb
22
2011
Explore
Collection
Library coalition develops lending collection of more than 80,000 ebooks

2011
Go
Wayback
The Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet is created
Apr
24
2012
Explore
Collection
Brewster Kahle is inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame
Sep
18
2012
Go
Wayback
Internet Archive launches the TV News Archive
Oct
25
2012
Explore
Collection
10,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of cultural material archived
Dec
7
2012
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive & EFF successfully block Washington State law
Jan
12
2013
Explore
Collection
Open knowledge activist and Open Library founder, Aaron Swartz, dies
Feb
21
2013
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive establishes its first Bitcoin ATM, and starts paying employees in Bitcoin
Oct
24
2013
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive launches Historical Software Archive
Jun
2014
Go
Wayback
The Accessible Books Consortium is founded
Mar
1
2015
Explore
Collection
Kahle/Austin Foundation establishes Foundation House for nonprofit workers
Jun
7-9
2016
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive hosts the world’s first Decentralized Web Summit
Jan
5
2017
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive launches the Trump Archive
May
15
2017
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive receives Webby Lifetime Achievement Award
Feb
25
2020
Explore
Collection
Brave browser adds one-click access to Wayback Machine captures
Mar
24
2020
Explore
Collection
In response to Covid-19 shutdowns, Internet Archive launches National Emergency Library
Jun
1
2020
Explore
Collection
Four publishers sue the Internet Archive to stop Controlled Digital Lending
Dec
31
2020
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive lending collection reaches 2 million modern books
Mar
9
2021
Explore
Collection
Internet Archive launches Internet Archive Scholar
Sept
30
2021
Go
Wayback
Internet Archive launches the Way Forward Machine
Loading...

Imagine the Future

From wayback, now we take you wayforward…to the year 2046. Travel with us twenty-five years into the future. Try out our Wayforward Machine to experience a world where access to knowledge is under siege.

Travel to 2046

Every Collection Tells a Story

Ways to Join in the Fun

Share an Anniversary Wish

How has the Internet Archive inspired you? What’s your favorite Internet Archive story? To tell us, just hit the “Record a video” button below.

Support our work

In 25 years, the Internet Archive and our community has accomplished so much. Together, we have built a world class library on the Internet. It’s all possible thanks to patrons around the world who are curious, generous, and preservation-minded, just like you.

If the Internet Archive has helped you over the last 25 years, that’s reason to celebrate! Please support our work.

Make a gift

Tweet an Anniversary Message

Follow our Story #InternetArchive25

Member of the Press?

Interested in producing a story about the Internet Archive? We’ve got you covered with key statistics, logos, historical images, and photos. Contact press@archive.org to set up an interview or attend one of our anniversary events nationwide.

Our Press kit is here
https://anniversary.archive.org/
anniversary.archive.org
crawl=CC-MAIN-2022-27
190053
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:QXLLMGLHFB5SE5ZGC5OH5GLEPYDE6QLU
<urn:uuid:705cf801-8e13-4e1b-b5a1-0f15b4ed254e>
2022-07-07T12:54:52Z
208.70.31.107
text/html
sha1:RWB67LGX5PWHDMEHGCGNUTANBKFSEDBT
<urn:uuid:5242defd-255a-4b3a-b5b5-1d354df9931b>
https://anniversary.archive.org/
response
<urn:uuid:9b1d627e-30cb-41e5-9eaa-517a6f93deb2>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2022-27
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for June/July 2022
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-153
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.3-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/