YouTube was created in 2005 by three former PayPal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. The idea for the site was born out of a difficulty in finding and sharing videos online. The domain name "(link unavailable)" was activated on February 14, 2005, and the site was officially launched on December 15, 2005.
Here's a brief timeline of YouTube's early days:
- February 14, 2005: (link unavailable) domain name is activated.
- April 23, 2005: The first YouTube video, "Me at the zoo," is uploaded by co-founder Jawed Karim.
- May 2005: YouTube secures funding from Sequoia Capital.
- December 15, 2005: YouTube officially launches.
- 2006: YouTube is acquired by Google for $1.65 billion.
Since then, YouTube has grown to become one of the largest and most popular video-sharing platforms in the world, with billions of users and millions of hours of content available to watch.