The Internet has had a great affect on our world. For example, electronic mail (email) existed before the Internet, but its use was limited to connections within a local network. With the millions of computers connected to each other via the Internet, email has become globally accessible and its use has greatly increased to the point where millions of people depend upon it for communication.

Closely associated with the Internet is the World Wide Web (WWW). The WWW is one huge database of information. The number of pages stored on the thousands of computers connected to the Internet has increased exponentially over the past several years. However, a database is useful only if the information can be easily accessed. The task of cataloging and finding information on the WWW falls to the various search engines, such as Yahoo, HotBot, MetaCrawler, Google and many others.

With the advent of the Internet, some new programming languages evolved. The purpose of these languages is to help present information in a useful, and sometimes entertaining, format. One of these is HTML (HyperText Markup Language), which is the computer language that will be learned in this course.

To completely understand the significance of HTML, we need to learn about the Internet. By knowing what has occurred in the past, you will be able to grasp some of the vision of what can be done in the future.