Post by Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica

Last week was a special week for Dutch internet history, and for CWI! On 📅 25 April 2026, it was exactly 40 years the Netherlands got its own country-code domain: .𝗻𝗹. That story begins at CWI! Our former colleague Piet Beertema applied for the domain, and the very first registration was 𝗰𝘄𝗶.𝗻𝗹. We warmly congratulate SIDN (the Stichting Internet Domeinregistratie Nederland, which manages the .nl domain) on this milestone! 🎉 The anniversary was also featured in the NOS Journaal last Saturday, with Teus Hagen - Piet Beertema’s former manager at CWI - looking back on those early days. And this week brought another moment of recognition for one of the pioneers behind the Dutch internet: on 24 April 2026, Jaap Akkerhuis was appointed a Knight in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands 🇳🇱. Akkerhuis was part of the CWI team that realized the first public internet connection between Europe and the United States, and later made major contributions to internet standards and DNS security. With these pictures of Piet Beertema, Teus Hagen and Jaap Akkerhuis receiving his royal decoration, we are celebrating not only a technical milestone, but also the people at CWI who helped shape the early internet in the Netherlands. Read the story on our website 👉 https://edu.nl/8bjrf Watch the NOS broadcast here 👉 https://edu.nl/duacy (from 8:17) #dotnl #InternetHistory #DomainNames 𝘗𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴: 1. 𝘛𝘦𝘶𝘴 𝘏𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘗𝘪𝘦𝘵 𝘉𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘢 (𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵) 𝘪𝘯 2004. 2. 𝘑𝘢𝘢𝘱 𝘈𝘬𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘶𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.