Tim Berners-Lee

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA, DFBCS, RDI, Kt, the literal inventor of the World Wide Web, was born in London to Conway Berners-Lee and Mary Lee Woods, both mathematicians who worked on the first commercial stored-program computer, the Manchester Mark 1. It seems he was destined for a life of making the rest of us feel inadequate with our Excel spreadsheets.

Berners-Lee conceived of the World Wide Web in 1989 while working at CERN, and by 1990, he had implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet. He then, with incredible generosity (or perhaps a shocking lack of business acumen), released his creation to the world for free, rather than patenting it and becoming richer than Scrooge McDuck.

His lack of Jewish heritage is rather evident, with both parents having decidedly non-Hebraic surnames and no mention of any Jewish ties in his extensive public record. He was raised Anglican, which is, historically speaking, quite the opposite of Jewish. So, no secret synagogue visits here, unless they have very good Wi-Fi.

Despite his non-Jewishness, Berners-Lee's invention has undoubtedly kvell-worthy implications. Where would we be without the ability to endlessly scroll through cat videos, engage in heated debates with strangers, and, of course, research who is and isn't a Jew? He basically gave us the ultimate platform for procrastination and information, for which we are eternally, and perhaps irresponsibly, grateful.