Final answer:
The groundwork for the Internet was laid by the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1960s, leading to the development of ARPANET and the eventual standardization of communication protocols which laid the foundation for the modern Internet.
Step-by-step explanation:
The groundwork for the Internet was laid in the 1960s by the U.S. Department of Defense. This foundational work, critical during the Cold War, resulted in the development of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), which is seen as the precursor to the modern Internet. Over the next few decades, this network expanded beyond government and academic circles, eventually evolving into a global system of interconnected computer networks. The communication protocols were standardized in 1982, leading to the formal birth of the Internet as we know it. The Internet saw further development with the advent of the World Wide Web in the late 1980s, which introduced a new application of technology through a network of interlinked hypertext web pages hosting various forms of data.