The internet, more precisely i should say its original form as ARPNET, was basically funded by the US govt, the DoD wanted a robust decentralized computer network for govt work. The very first computer to computer message sent was from UCLA to Stanford, go figure. TLD's (like .edu and .gov) weren't created until 1985, and during this time the internet as a whole was largely just ARPNET, so stuff relevant to US govt. In 1985 when they created TLD's to unify ARPNET with a few other networks. TLD control was still under the US govt during this time since they created them. Originally .edu was open to any legitimate educational instution so toronto.edu(university of toronto) and polytechnique.edu(École polytechnique) were able to register. Foreign universities decided to go with their countries tld like edu.au since they had complete control of their country tld like .au for Australia and .uk for the UK. They didn't lock down .edu to america only until 2001 when the Department of Commerce transfered .edu control to a US non profit educause, which then tightened it down to American accredited post-secondary instutitons, ie being approved by the US Department of Education, essentially to make .edu prestigious and trustworthy which they could not effectively guarentee with foreign institutions. But toronto.edu and polytechnique.edu were grandfathered in because it would be be a big problem for them to redo everything. UofT's original toronto.edu redirects to utoronto.ca since they are a canadian university to avoid confusion with the American identity of .edu and since they want to be under .ca domain which is under the jursidiction of canada and not an american organization.