title: Which encoding is used by the HTTP protocol?
body: <p>When a browser sends an HTTP request to a web server, what encoding is used to encode the HTTP protocol on the wire? Is it ASCII? UTF8? or UTF16? Or does it specify which encoding it uses in a predefined format (before any decoding takes place?)</p>
  
  <p>P.S
  I'm not asking about the actual payload (e.g. HTML) of the request/response. I'm asking about the request line (i.e. <code>GET /index.html HTTP/1.1</code>) and headers (i.e. <code>Host: google.com</code>)</p>