With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Twitter, telegram and e-mail: Famous first lines

Twitter launched five years ago with the simple message "just setting up my twttr". In the same way, many technological breakthroughs that ultimately shaped the world began life, not with a fanfare of trumpets, but with a few humble words.

"Alright, so here we are in front of the elephants."

And so with great understatement, the first words were uttered on YouTube, in its first video posted in April 2005.

Me at the Zoo depicts co-founder Jawed Karim at San Diego Zoo. And yes, he's in front of the elephants.

Six years, and billions of page views later, YouTube has become part of the media landscape, used by the Queen, world leaders and the owners of pets that do weird things.

If Karim knew back then how big his new venture would become, maybe he would have given that first video more of a sense of occasion. But maybe not. Every new phenomenon has to start somewhere, after all....
Read entire article at BBC News