Fifteen years Internet in Europe

On Monday, November 17 2003, it is exactly fifteen years ago that Europe was connected to the Internet. This connection was established at CWI, the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands. The institute was the first non-American organization to gain access to the American science network NSFnet, which was the equivalent of Internet at the time. The connection was a result of extensive negotiations with the American Internet administrators, in particular by CWI's network manager Piet Beertema and his colleagues.
The first European connection was the first step to Internet for everybody. Soon, other academic and research organizations were connected, later followed by private companies and in 1993 by individual users. In fifteen years, Internet has grown from a convenient way to exchange information with U.S. scientists into the indispensable mass medium it is today.