Facebook launches at Harvard

Event, Invention · North America · Top Moment

The original blue-and-white Thefacebook homepage welcomes Harvard students and offers registration and login. — Thefacebook’s Harvard launch page, archived on 12 February 2004; rendered from the preserved original HTML. Thefacebook / Internet Archive. Browser capture, 27 September 2026. Image source.

On 4 February 2004 Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com, open at first only to Harvard e-mail addresses, marking a turning point in humanity’s relationship with communities and popularizing online identities and interactions in a way that mainstreamed what before was looked on as niche. In many ways it was the culmination of the computer nerd transforming into the most popular kid on campus, reflecting our newfound embrace of the digital and the networked. Needless to say, the moment was a pivotal development in the evolution of social media, a term so pervasive it would practically come to define the time period of the proceeding decade. The platform, initially created for college students to connect and share information, quickly expanded beyond the academic setting, making countless millions comfortable with a life—at least a social one—online.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.