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DARPA was created in 1958 as the Advanced Research Projects Agency
(ARPA) by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Its purpose was to formulate
and execute research and development projects to expand the frontiers of
technology and science, with the aim to reach beyond immediate military
requirements.[3] The administration was responding to the Soviet
launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957, and DARPA's mission was to ensure U.S.
military technology be more sophisticated than that of the nation's
potential enemies.

ARPA was renamed to "DARPA" in March 1972, then renamed "ARPA" in February 1993, and then renamed "DARPA" again in March 1996.

DARPA
is independent from other military research and development and reports
directly to senior Department of Defense management. DARPA has ca. 240
personnel (13 in management, close to 140 technical) directly managing a
$3 billion budget. These figures are "on average" since DARPA focuses
on short-term (two to four year) projects run by small, purpose-built
teams.

DARPA funded projects have provided significant
technologies that influenced many non-military fields, such as computer
networking and graphical user interfaces in information technology.