In order to get to this article, you need to click on a series of hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are text that when clicked takes the user to a new webpage; an invention fundamental to the creation of the internet.

Hyperlinks are so commonplace in our daily lives that it’s hard to imagine they once didn’t exist. But for a long time, computers used an inefficient system, with no instantaneous user-to-computer interaction. They did not have the classic screens that we associate with computers today, with the computer’s input instead being punch card or magnetic tape, and the output a printed report.

Douglas Englebart, working at the Stanford Research Institute, created a new version of the computer, called an oN-Line System (NLS). This computer allowed users to interact with a computer that displayed graphics on a monitor, with no delay. Engelbert realized that this new computer system could become even more efficient with the use of hyperlinks. With his team, he used NLS computers to create hyperlinks that could be clicked on with a mouse, transporting users within the same document, or to other documents.

This research, funded by both the US National Airforce and the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, soon became fundamental in the development of the World Wide Web. Today, people navigate the internet via browsers, clicking on hyperlinks across the web, finding information more readily than ever before.