The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is always a good source for the latest in Internet advances.
Here is a good web page index which gives you everything you wanted to know about the history of the Internet.
For the latest on IPv6, check out the IPv6 organization's web page.
To read a tutorial on TCP, look at SSFNET's web page.
For the latest on Internet2, go to the Internet2 home page.
Remember that during the virtual circuit example, a circuit made of tables is created before any packets travel the network.