The registration of domains on the Internet began in 1985, when the computer manufacturer Symbolics registered symbolics.com on March 15, making it the first .com domain in history. This milestone marked the beginning of domain registrations in the Domain Name System (DNS).

In that year, only the following TLDs were available:

• .com – Primarily aimed at commercial organizations.
• .org – Designed for nonprofit organizations.
• .edu – Exclusive to educational institutions in the United States.
• .gov – Reserved for the United States government.
• .mil – Intended for U.S. military institutions.
• .net – Initially planned for entities involved in network infrastructure, though it was later adopted by a broader range of organizations.

The first 20 domains registered in history were:

1. symbolics.com – March 15, 1985
2. bbn.com – April 24, 1985
3. think.com – May 24, 1985
4. mcc.com – July 11, 1985
5. dec.com – September 30, 1985
6. northrop.com – November 7, 1985
7. xerox.com – January 9, 1986
8. sri.com – January 17, 1986
9. hp.com – March 3, 1986
10. bellcore.com – March 5, 1986
11. ibm.com – March 19, 1986
12. sun.com – March 19, 1986
13. intel.com – March 25, 1986
14. ti.com – March 25, 1986
15. att.com – April 25, 1986
16. gmr.com – May 8, 1986
17. tektronix.com – May 19, 1986
18. amd.com – May 24, 1986
19. unisys.com – July 27, 1986
20. siemens.com – September 29, 1986