The First Photo on the Internet in 1992 Turns 20 on July 18

The modern day internet was born 20 years ago in 1992 and created by Tim Berners-Lee. The first photo posted on the World Wide Web was nothing special at all when it was posted on July 18, 1992. It's the backstory of the photo that is very interesting because it has a direct tie-in to CERN, The European Organization for Nuclear Research that has been in the news lately for it's possible discovery of the Higgs boson particle, which some call the 'god' particle... a particle that could hold the key to the creation of the universe.CERN is also the home of the Large Hadron Collider. Back in 1992, some of the wives and girlfriends of the scientists who worked at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland formed an all-girl comedy band called Les Horribles Cernettes. The promotional photo of the four members of the band became the first photo ever uploaded to the internet that you can see below.

The exact publication date of the photo is not known because there were some problems getting the image on the web. The photo was on and off the web at the time for a few months until the day the GIF interface worked the way it should, which allowed the photo to stay on the web. Les Horribles Cernettes never became famous entertainers, but their first photo will be forever a very important and historical mark on the internet and The World Wide Web.