SEPT 2:NET TURNS 40,GREAT FIRE AND FIERY SPEECH

September 2 is remembered in history for three major events: Arpanet, the forerunner of the Internet, was born 40 years ago; Great Fire of London in 1666 and the radio speech of the Harry S Truman, President of the US in 1945, following the surrender of Japan in the Second World War.

Net, a middle-aged bloke, the London fire and Truman

The Internet has entered its middle age. It turned 40 today even as major nations, including India, are still to use the full potential of the Internet. Despite turning 40, the Internet is still young at heart and the potentials of growth are enormous.

It was on Sept 2, 40 years ago, that Len Kleinrock and his team at UCLA began initial tests on what would ultimately end up as the Internet - something that the world today cannot live without. And with social networking, tweeting and high speed applications making its mark, the Internet has over a billion people online.

On Sept 2, 1969 about 20 people got together in Kleinrock's lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, to watch as two computers chatting by sending out meaningless test data through a 15-foot gray cable. That was the beginning of what was then called Arpanet network. The 1970s brought email and the TCP/IP communications protocols, which allowed multiple networks to connect. That then became the Internet.

However, the Internet did not land up on the study tables in houses till the '90s. That came when British physicist, Tim Berners-Lee, invented the web, a subset of the internet that made it easier to link resources across disparate locations.

Here are the milestones:

1969 | On September 2, two computers at University of California, Los Angeles, exchange meaningless data in first test of Arpanet, an experimental military network 1972 | Ray Tomlinson brings email to the network, choosing @ as a way to specify email addresses belonging to other systems 1973 | Arpanet gets first international nodes, in England and Norway 1974 | Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn develop communications technique called TCP, allowing multiple networks to understand one another, creating a true internet 1983 | Domain name system is proposed. Creation of suffixes such as '.com', '.gov' and '.edu' comes a year later

1988 | One of the first internet worms, Morris, cripples thousands of computers

1990 | Tim Berners- Lee creates the World Wide Web while developing ways to control computers remotely

1993 | Marc Andreessen and colleagues at University of Illinois create Mosaic, the first web browser to combine graphics and text on a single page

1994 | Andreessen and others on the Mosaic team form a company to develop the first commercial web browser, Netscape. Two immigration lawyers introduce the world to spam, advertising their green card lottery services

1999 | Napster popularizes music file-sharing and spawns successors that have permanently changed the recording industry

2000 | The dot-com boom of the 1990s becomes a bust as technology companies slide

2004 | Mark Zuckerberg starts Facebook at Harvard University

2005 | Launch of YouTube video-sharing site 2007 | Apple releases iPhone, introducing millions more to wireless internet access

World internet population surpasses 250 million in 1999, 500 million in 2002, 1 billion in 2006 and 1.5 billion in 2008

The fire that engulfed London

A tragedy of such a magnitude cannot be imagined today. In 1666, over 80 percent of London perished in a devastating fire that began on the night of September 2. It all began as a small fire in the bakeshop of Thomas Farynor, baker to King Charles II.

In 1666, most of London had houses built of wood. Hence it did not take long for the fire to spread. The strong wind that blew that night made matters worse. The citizen firefighting brigades had little success in containing the fire with their buckets of water from the river. By 8 am, the fire had spread halfway across London Bridge. The only thing that stopped the fire from spreading to Southwark, on the other side of the river, was the gap that had been caused by the fire of 1633.

The fire raged for three days till the Duke of York (later King James II) had the presence of mind to order the Paper House demolished to create a fire break, and the fire finally died down.

Although the loss of life was minimal, some sources say only sixteen perished, the magnitude of the property loss was staggering. Some 430 acres, as much as 80% of the city proper was destroyed, including 13,000 houses, 89 churches, and 52 Guild Halls. The Great Fire, and the fire of 1676, which destroyed over 600 houses south of the river, changed the face of London forever. The one positive effect of the Great Fire was that the plague, which had ravished London since 1665, diminished greatly, due to the mass death of the plague-carrying rats in the blaze.

Charles II appointed six Commissioners to redesign the city. The plan provided for wider streets and buildings of brick, rather than timber. The King also sanctioned a monument to the Great Fire, which stands still today at the site of the bakery which started it all, on a street now named Monument Street.

The best lines of Harry Truman

In is billed as one of the best speeches; some say it had the true signature of American rhetoric. Long before the advent of TV and high drama, US President Harry Truman had to use the radio to address the American people after the signing of the terms of Japan's unconditional surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri on Sept 2, 1945. Truman credits the Spirit of Liberty, the freedom of the individual, and the personal dignity of man as the forces which led to victory but also warns the difficult peace that lay ahead. He proclaimed Sept 2 as V-J Day -- the Victory over Japan.

Here are some of the best lines:

The thoughts and hopes of all America -- indeed of all the civilized world -- are centered tonight on the battleship Missouri. There on that small piece of American soil anchored in Tokyo Harbour the Japanese have just officially laid down their arms. They have signed terms of unconditional surrender.

Four years ago, the thoughts and fears of the whole civilized world were centered on another piece of American soil -- Pearl Harbor. The mighty threat to civilization which began there is now laid at rest. It was a long road to Tokyo -- and a bloody one. We shall not forget Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese militarists will not forget the U.S.S. Missouri.

The evil done by the Japanese war lords can never be repaired or forgotten. But their power to destroy and kill has been taken from them. Their armies and what is left of their Navy are now impotent.

To all of us there comes first a sense of gratitude to Almighty God who sustained us and our Allies in the dark days of grave danger, who made us to grow from weakness into the strongest fighting force in history, and who has now seen us overcome the forces of tyranny that sought to destroy His civilization.

God grant that in our pride of the hour, we may not forget the hard tasks that are still before us; that we may approach these with the same courage, zeal, and patience with which we faced the trials and problems of the past four years.

This is a victory of more than arms alone. This is a victory of liberty over tyranny.

But back of it all were the will and spirit and determination of a free people -- who know what freedom is, and who know that it is worth whatever price they had to pay to preserve it.

It was the spirit of liberty which gave us our armed strength and which made our men invincible in battle. We now know that that spirit of liberty, the freedom of the individual, and the personal dignity of man, are the strongest and toughest and most enduring forces in all the world.

We know that under it we can meet the hard problems of peace which have come upon us. A free people with free Allies, who can develop an atomic bomb, can use the same skill and energy and determination to overcome all the difficulties ahead.

Victory always has its burdens and its responsibilities as well as its rejoicing.

But we face the future and all its dangers with great confidence and great hope. America can build for itself a future of employment and security. Together with the United Nations, it can build a world of peace rounded on justice, fair dealing, and tolerance.

As President of the United States, I proclaim Sunday, September the second, 1945, to be V-J Day -- the day of formal surrender by Japan. It is not yet the day for the formal proclamation of the end of the war nor of the cessation of hostilities. But it is a day which we Americans shall always remember as a day of retribution -- as we remember that other day, the day of infamy.

From this day we move forward. We move toward a new era of security at home. With the other United Nations we move toward a new and better world of cooperation, of peace and international good will and cooperation.