Google

The Founders meet

Jan 5, 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

Backrub

Apr 10, 1996

Larry and Sergey begin collaborating on a search engine called BackRub. BackRub operates on Stanford servers for more than a year—eventually taking up too much bandwidth.

Googol

Sep 21, 1997

Google.com is registered as a domain on September 15. The name—a play on the word "googol," a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros—reflects Larry and Sergey's mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.

Top 100

Dec 13, 1998

"PC Magazine" reports that Google "has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results" and recognizes us as the search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites for 1998.

New Digs

Feb 10, 1999

We outgrow our garage office and move to new digs at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto with just eight employees.

MentalPlex

Apr 11, 2000

We announce the MentalPlex: Google's ability to read your mind as you visualize the search results you want. Thus begins our annual foray in the Silicon Valley tradition of April 1 hoaxes.

Google Toolbar

Dec 10, 2000

Google Toolbar is released—a browser plug-in that makes it possible to search without visiting the Google homepage.

Eric Schmidt

Mar 13, 2001

Eric Schmidt is named chairman of the board of directors.

Google Images

Jul 20, 2001

Google Images launches, initially offering access to 250 million images.

Google Search appliance

Feb 27, 2002

The first Google product for enterprises is released: the Google Search Appliance is a yellow box that businesses can plug into their computer network to enable search capabilities for their own documents.

Google Grants

Apr 17, 2003

We launch Google Grants—the nonprofit edition of AdWords, which provides nonprofit organizations with $10,000 per month in in-kind AdWords advertising to promote their iniatives.

April Fools

Apr 1, 2004

We launch Gmail on April Fools' Day. At first invite-only, today it boasts more than 425 million users. Fun fact: our internal code name for Gmail was "Caribou," inspired by a Dilbert cartoon.

Google Earth

Jun 20, 2005

We unveil Google Earth, a satellite imagery-based mapping service that lets you take a virtual journey to any location in the world. Google Earth has since been downloaded more than 1 billion times.

Apps For Education

Oct 22, 2006

We launch Apps for Education; our first deployment is to Arizona State University. Today Apps for EDU has more than 25 million users, and is being used by 74 of the top 100 universities.

Presentations

Sep 11, 2007

We add a new application for making slide presentations to Google Docs.

The G1

Sep 15, 2008

T-Mobile announces the G1, the first phone built on the Android operating system.

Google has a Voice

Mar 10, 2009

We release Google Voice, which improves the way you use your phone, with features like voicemail transcription. In 2013, we announce that Voice will be integrated into Google+ Hangouts.

T.V.

May 8, 2010

Google TV is built on Android and Chrome and gives you an easy and fast way to navigate to television channels, websites, apps, shows and movies.

Ice Cream Sandwich

Oct 16, 2011

Android 4.0, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich, is designed to work on both phones and tablets, and to make the power of Android enticing and intuitive.

Nexus 7

Jun 5, 2012

We release the first Nexus 7—a powerful 7" tablet designed to bring Google Play content to life and bring you the best of Google in the palm of your hand. Later in the year, the Nexus family expands to include a 10" tablet and the Nexus 4 phone

1 Billion Androids

Sep 18, 2013

Android passes 1 billion device activations—reflecting the work of the entire Android ecosystem and thanks to the enthusiasm of users all around the world.