Google is celebrating its 15th anniversary Friday, September 27, 2013. Considering how powerful and ubiquitous the American internet firm has become, it's hard to believe that Google didn't even exist two decades ago. Here, we take a look back at Google's evolution in 15 key dates.
September 27, 1998: The "Google.com" domain name is registered, and a new search engine joins the internet.
May 9, 2000: The search engine is made available in 10 new languages (German, Danish, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese and Swedish).
June 26, 2000: Google becomes the first search engine to index 1 billion web pages.
April 1, 2004: Gmail is launched in its beta version, initially offering 1GB of web email storage.
February 8, 2005: Google Maps debuts, with maps and itineraries for the US, Canada and the UK.
November 13, 2006: Google purchases YouTube, the video sharing platform, for over $1.6 billion.
May 25, 2007: Street View is introduced to Google Maps, allowing users to explore certain cities.
November 5, 2007: Google announces Android, its own operating system, designed to compete with iOS, Symbian and Windows Mobile.
September 1, 2008: Google presents Chrome, its first web browser.
July 7, 2009: The Mountain View firm announces plans for the Google Chrome operating system, based on Linux.
January 5, 2010: Presentation of the Nexus One, the first "Google phone," manufactured by HTC.
June 15, 2011: Google presents the first Chromebook, manufactured by Samsung and equipped with the Chrome OS.
June 28, 2011: Google+ is launched, marking the company's attempt to compete with Facebook in the social network market.
June 29, 2011: The State of Nevada authorizes the circulation of driverless cars, allowing Google to conduct field tests on its own model.
April 5, 2012: Sergey Brin wears the first Google Glass prototype, whetting tech fans' appetites for a future augmented reality offering from the brand.