The worldwide web (www) was invented in 1989 by British scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, while working as a software engineer at CERN, the European nuclear research organisation.
It was originally conceived and developed for automated information-sharing among scientists in universities and institutes around the world. CERN put the software in the public domain, which allowed the web to flourish as a system of interlinked documents across the internet.
The worldwide web opened up the internet to everyone, connecting the world in a way that has transformed how we get and share information and communicate.