Facebook has finally completed 8 years last week. Launched on February 4th 2004 and founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, Facebook offers a common place to share information, pics and videos among of group of friends.  Interestingly, Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.

Today, Facebook is world’s number one social networking website with over 800 million active users. 

Here are a few highlights of Facebook’s spectacular rise:

February 4, 2004

Zuckerberg launches Thefacebook.com, a social network that allows users to create basic profiles including personal information and photos.

February 10, 2004

Just after six days of its launch, three Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narenya send Zuckerberg a cease-and-desist letter, accusing him for intentionally misleading people into believing that he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com. These three persons complained to the Harvard Crimson, and the newspaper began an investigation.

June 2004

On June 2004, world’s number one social networking site received its first investment by Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist. He invested $500,000 in Facebook, which facilitated Facebook to enhance its reach to more number of users.  

October 24, 2007

Another major mile stone in life cycle of facebook is October 24, 2007. On this date, the tech giant Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6 percent share of Facebook for $240 million. The deal gave Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion.  In response, Facebook gave rights to place international ads on Facebook to Microsoft.

June 30, 2010

Like a dramatic twist in facebook’s history, New York businessman Paul D. Ceglia filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg(co-founder, Facebook), claiming that he had struck into a deal with the founder in 2003 for half of Facebook's revenue and rightfully owned 84 per cent of the company.

Surprisingly, three successive lawyers withdraw from his legal team within a period of four months in late 2011. Still, the litigation remains ongoing.

October 10, 2010

A drama film about Facebook’s beginning, ‘The Social Network’ has been launched on this day. The film was directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Interestingly, no staff members from Facebook, including Zuckerberg, were involved with the project.

Lateron, Mark Zuckerberg said that The Social Network is inaccurate and made on imagination.

November, 2011

Social networking site Facebook's latest Timeline feature has been globally rolled out in Novrmber, 2011. The new Timeline feature allows users to compile and share with others to see everything they have shared so far, ranging from photos, videos and music. Some significant things that users can do on Timeline are: edit his basic information, jump to the past, check highlights from each month, add life events and update his status along with sharing app activity. For this, Facebook has reportedly acquired location sharing service Gowalla.

Unfortunately, Timeline changes are not welcomed with open arms by the majority of users.

With the latest move, Facebook is now expected to start showing ads in its mobile apps. According to latest chunk of information, Facebook will hold an event for marketers in New York on February 29, where it is expected to unveil its mobile advertising plans.

Seems, coming years will play a crucial role in deciding the fate for the social networking giant Facebook. But one thing is clear; Facerbook will continue to grow. 

As for now, Happy 40th Birthday Facebook!