In what year was the internet available to the general public?

On August 6, 1991, the World Wide Web became available to the public. On that date, Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Web, added a piece to the alt.hypertext newsgroup announcing the change, ushering in a new era of communication.

The original motivation behind the World Wide Web was a desire for physicists to have the ability to share information across international boundaries even if they did not have access to the same software and hardware types. Originally, Berners-Lee thought of the web as a way to provide and share project documentation, registration of documents and online assistance. In the years since 1991, though, it has become clear that the web does infinitely more.