the internet was orginally started by the USA during the second world war.It was called DARPANET and started roughly 1957(i think) it purpose was to secure information at one of the super computers being employed by the US government in the event of an attack by the germans at one of the sites.
Following the fragmented military communicatiopn systems, a British engineer, Tim Berners-Lee working for CERN, in Geneva developed the World Wide Web, in 1989. This of course is what really made the "internet" of practical use, but he seems to have gone almost unrecognised for his work. He is now in U.S.