February 2004 Mark Zuckerberg launches thefacebook.com from his Harvard College dorm room. Mid 2004 Investor Peter Thiel loans $500,000 to thefacebook.com that would eventually convert into a 10.2% equity stake in the company. September 2004 Harvard classmates Tyler and Cameron Winkelvoss and Divya Narendra file a lawsuit in federal court alleging Mr. Zuckerberg stole the idea for thefacebook.com from them. May 2005 The social-networking company obtains $12.7 million in funding, led by venture-capital firm Accel Partners, which values the company at $100 million. August 2005 Thefacebook.com becomes Facebook. September 2006 Facebook considers selling itself to Yahoo for $1 billion. September 2006 Facebook opens registration on its site to anyone over the age of 13. August 2007 Facebook launches Platform, which lets outside developers build online services that work within its website. September 2007 Facebook launches News Feed, a feature that aggregates news about friends’ activity on the site, sparking widespread outrage and the first of many concerns over the site’s approach to user privacy. October 2007 Microsoft invests $240 million in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation. November 2007 Concerns from privacy advocates grow over Facebook’s launch of Beacon, a feature that tracks user activity outside of the site and shows it to friends. March 2008 Top Google executive Sheryl Sandberg joins Facebook as chief operating officer. May 2009 Russian Internet firm Digital Sky Technologies offers to invest $200 million in Facebook at a $10 billion valuation. June 2009 Facebook hires former Genentech CFO David Ebersman as CFO. January 2011 Goldman Sachs Group leads a $1.5 billion funding round in Facebook at a $50 billion valuation. September 2011 Facebook announces that it has more 800 million monthly visitors. Late 2011 Facebook executives eye an IPO for the first half of 2012 that would raise as much as $10 billion and place a more than $100 billion valuation on the company.   Source: WSJ Research