Key dates in the history of Facebook, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary in February.
Key dates in the history of Facebook, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary in February:
2004
JANUARY: Mark Zuckerberg, a 19-year-old computer whiz at Harvard University, begins working out of his dormitory room on an online network aimed initially at connecting Harvard students.
FEBRUARY: Thefacebook.com is launched by Zuckerberg and three Harvard roommates and classmates: Chris Hughes, Eduardo Saverin and Dustin Moskovitz.
MAY: Zuckerberg moves to Silicon Valley and decides not to return to Harvard for the fall semester.
JULY: The new company receives its first investment: $500,000 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
SEPTEMBER: "The Wall" is added to user profiles.
APRIL: Second major round of funding: $12.7 million from Accel Partners.
AUGUST: Thefacebook.com officially changes its name to Facebook.
FEBRUARY: Viacom offers to buy Facebook for $1.5 billion but is turned down.
SEPTEMBER: Yahoo also makes an unsuccessful $1 billion bid for the social network. Facebook adds the "News Feed" and opens up to anyone over the age of 13.
SEPTEMBER: Facebook launches a $10 million fund to provide money to companies or individuals who want to build applications.
OCTOBER: Microsoft takes a $240 million stake in Facebook, which has 50 million members.
DECEMBER: Zuckerberg apologizes for "mistakes" in rolling out a new ad platform called Beacon that tracked purchases made by Facebook members and let their friends know what they had bought.
FEBRUARY: A $65 million settlement is reached with twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss over allegations that Zuckerberg stole their idea for Facebook while at Harvard. Facebook launches a Spanish site.
MARCH: Sheryl Sandberg, a top Google executive, is hired as Facebook's chief operating officer. French and German Facebook sites are launched.
APRIL: Facebook dethrones MySpace to become the world's most popular social networking website.
AUGUST: Facebook membership hits 100 million.
OCTOBER: Facebook opens its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.
MARCH: Facebook launches the first mobile application for the site.
APRIL: Membership hits 200 million.
MAY: Russian internet company Digital Sky Technologies invests $200 million in Facebook.
SEPTEMBER: Membership hits 300 million. Zuckerberg says the social network has become "cash flow positive," meaning it is earning enough to cover operating costs.
DECEMBER: In one of many privacy flaps, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Center for Digital Democracy and others ask the US Federal Trade Commission to look into Facebook privacy policies, claiming it had deceived users over protection of their personal data.
MAY: Pakistan blocks access to Facebook over a competition encouraging users to post caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed on the site.
JULY: Membership hits 500 million. Lady Gaga becomes the first person with 10 million fans on Facebook, breaking the barrier a few days ahead of US President Barack Obama.
AUGUST: Facebook launches Facebook Places, which lets members use mobile devices to share their whereabouts.
OCTOBER: "The Social Network," director David Fincher's movie about the origins of Facebook, hits movie theaters. The film written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Jesse Eisenberg and pop star Justin Timberlake is a box office hit. Nominated for eight Oscars, it takes three: best adapted screenplay, original score and film editing.
DECEMBER: Time magazine names Zuckerberg Person of the Year for "transforming the way we live our lives every day."
JANUARY: A private share offering raises $1.5 billion from investors and values Facebook at $50 billion.
FEBRUARY: Facebook announces plans to move from Palo Alto to a sprawling campus once home to Sun Microsystems in nearby Menlo Park.
APRIL: Obama visits Facebook headquarters, taking questions from Zuckerberg, employees and an online audience.
SEPTEMBER: Timeline pages are introduced that let Facebook users turn their profiles into interactive digital scrap books that tell the stories of their lives.
NOVEMBER: Facebook agrees to tighten privacy policies and submit to external audits in a settlement with US regulators.
JANUARY: Facebook files for an initial public offering.
MAY: Some $16 billion raised in the richest technology IPO, giving the company a market value of $104 billion. A hoodie-clad Zuckerberg remotely rings the Nasdaq bell from Facebook's California headquarters on the first trading day. Membership hits 900 million.
AUGUST: Facebook closes its deal to buy the popular photo-sharing app Instagram. The purchase price was $1 billion when announced, but less at the closing because of a slump in Facebook's share price.
SEPTEMBER: Shares in Facebook slide more than 50 percent from the IPO price of $38 amid fears on growth and profitability, but the slump will prove transitory.
OCTOBER: Facebook membership tops one billion.
JANUARY: Facebook launches a "social graph" search engine to find posts on the network, in collaboration with Microsoft.
APRIL: Zuckerberg forms a political lobby group called FWD.us to press for reforms in immigration and education policy. The "Facebook Home" software suite platform for smartphones is announced.
NOVEMBER: According to media reports, Facebook makes an unsuccessful $3 billion offer for the Snapchat messaging platform.
DECEMBER: Facebook is added to the Standard & Poor's 500 index, which represents the largest publicly traded US firms. Video ads debut in Facebook feeds.
JANUARY: Facebook shares hit a record high ahead of the company's 10th anniversary, giving the group a market value above $150 billion. Profit reported for 2013 jumps to $1.5 billion on revenue of $7.9 billion
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