useless knowledge....
 

Me and some friends where discusing this in a chat channel. I actually searched for the answer but couldnt find anything on it(even tried jeeves, lol).

What was the first domain(not IP) online ever? We came to the conclusion that it was probably some universitys official domain.

The Internet evolved from a military network to an educational network and now to a commercial network. Since it evolved over time (a very short time really) it's difficult to say something was first - like when was the first dog born?

The first .com that was actually registered has always been open for debate. I think it's either symbolics.com or think.com - I heard the debates on this about 8 years after it happened so I don't think there were any records of it.

Before the registration process anyone could create any name that they wanted as long as they added it correctly to the hosts file and sent out the proper email. Before the .com domains were actually registered the first domains "on-line" were probably a bunch of .mil, .arpa. or .edu. When it was only military and education connected would you consider that "on-line"?

I do :)