• On January 27, 1986, a meeting at USC-ISI replaced the .ARPA structure with 6 functionally organized top level domains.  Representatives of the four major networks were Ken Harrenstein (ARPANET,) Dan Oberst (BITNET,) Craig Partridge (CSNET,) and Mark Horton (UUCP.)

• Global domains created were .COM, .EDU, .GOV, .MIL, .ORG, and .NET.  2 letter country codes, based on ISO 3166, were added as an afterthought but not expected to be popular.  (Steve Kille promptly pronounced .GB unusable and created .UK.) 

• Each of the four major networks was authorized to cooperate to register second level domains.

• At lunch break, the participants were horrified to learn of the Challenger space shuttle explosion.

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