The internet evolved from a US government/military research project called ARPANET to link disparate computer systems in different locations together to enable easier access to information. The World Wide Web the system for accessing and storing information on the internet was developed out of work done at the CERN research facility to enable easy access to research documents
sorry but derbyram is wrong. ARPANET was originally funded by the US government as a research project into the possibility of getting computers to "talk" to each other. In a possible nuclear war, analog radio would be useless and they needed an alternative form of communication. the WWW was a by-product, when they (the researchers) realised that the networking meant they could pass files, as well as information, between a and b. Sorry it's not a very "official government site" type link but it's explained here. http://www.knobblycrab.co.uk/internet-history.html
ok he/she is sorta right and wrong. The main thing is it was never conceived to pass information from a to b, it was originally devised as an alternative form of communication in the event of a nuclear war. The WWW was just a by-product of the original project and was never considered as part of the project