The role of ARPA in the development of the ARPANET, 1961-1972

The use of computer networks is growing rapidly throughout our society. Current network technology has its roots in the U.S. Department of Defense, specifically in the Advanced Research Projects Agency and the ARPANET computer network, but designed for other than explicitly military objectives. This paper describes ARPA's motivations for developing the network and how ARPA and computer science researchers built the first wide-area packet-switching network.