History of Google

The Founders Meet

Period: Jan 1, 1995 to Feb 28, 1995

Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford. Larry, 22, a U Michigan grad, is considering the school; Sergey, 21, is assigned to show him around.

Google is Developed

Period: Mar 1, 1995 to Sep 14, 1997

Google began in March 1995 as a research project. Originally known as BackRub, it was developed as a web crawler on servers at Stanford University.

BackRub Renamed to Google

Aug 19, 1996

Google Founders' Paper on BackRub/Google

Google Domain Registered

Sep 15, 1997

The google.com domain name was registered on this day, although Google was still considered to be in beta at this point.

Google is Incorporated

Sep 4, 1998

Google Inc. was officially incorporated on this day. The name "Google Inc." came from a $100,000 check from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim made before the company's incorporation.

Google Acquires YouTube

Period: Oct 9, 2006 to Nov 13, 2006

On October 9, 2006, Google announced that it would buy the popular online video site YouTube for $1.65 billion and maintain YouTube as a separate brand, rather than merging it. The deal was finalized by November 13, 2006.

Android is Announced

Nov 5, 2007

Android was unveiled in 2007, along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance – a consortium of hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.