Do you remember the first email you sent? What about your first tweet? It’s hard to imagine a world in which the Internet, email, Twitter, Facebook, Skype, and everything else you can find online never existed.

Here are 10 famous Internet firsts that were monumental in shaping web history and how we communicate in today’s world.

1. The first tweet was written by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on March 21, 2006. It’s weird to see such a short Twitter handle!

 

2. Mark Zuckerberg was the first person on Facebook with ID number 4 (the first three Facebook accounts were used for testing). The first non-founder to join Facebook was Arie Hasit (below), who is now in Israel studying to be a rabbi.He works for a Jewish youth movement called NOAM. He said, “I definitely use Facebook to promote my nonprofit work. I started using it literally at the beginning, and I’ve been singing its praises ever since.”

3. Remember AOL Instant messaging? The first AOL Instant Message was sent by Ted Leonsis to his wife on Jan. 6, 1993. It read, “Don’t be scared … it is me. Love you and miss you.” His wife replied, “Wow … this is so cool!” Leonsis later became AOL’s Vice Chairman. We’ve come a long way since 1993!

 

4. The first YouTube video posted was posted by co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. It was uploaded on April 23, 2005 and has been watched nearly 10 million times.

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5. The first picture ever uploaded on the web was posted by Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the World Wide Web) on behalf of a comedy band called Les Horrible Cernettes.

 

6. The first website was dedicated to information about the World Wide Web and went live on August 6, 1991. Here’s the url: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.

7. The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985. Now it serves as a historic site.

 

8. The first email was sent by Ray Tomlinson, a US programmer who implemented the first email system, to himself in 1971. “The test messages were entirely forgettable. . . . Most likely the first message was QWERTYIOP or something similar,” he said. 

 

9. The first sentence uttered on Skype was in Estonian in April 2003 by a member of the development team. It was ‘Tere, kas sa kuuled mind?’ or “Hello, can you hear me?” in English.

 

10. Joe McCambley ran the first banner ad ever online. It went live in October 1994 on HotWired.com, and it promoted 7 art museums, sponsored by AT&T.