(Source: The Verge) Here are some of The most important moments, product launches, and acquisitions in Google’s 20-year history

No technology company has done a better job of shaping the modern Internet and modern life than Google. The company, which started as a novelty search engine, now manages eight products, each with more than a billion users. People use Google’s software to search for knowledge, to socialize, to work, to consume media and to participate in the wider life of the Internet. The most influential company in history celebrates its 20th birthday on Tuesday September 4th.

Google, a subsidiary controlled by Alphabet, is on a steady pace to join Apple and Amazon in the $1 trillion pile.

Google’s 20 years have shown that the giant has made remarkable achievements in areas such as autonomous driving and smartphone operating systems that have turned it into a Silicon Valley giant that will endure for decades to come.

Here’s a look at some of the most important moments of Google’s two decades, including product launches and acquisitions.

August 1996: Larry Page and Sergey Brin launch Google on Stanford University’s network

Google began as a research project of Larry Page called BackRub. Later, Larry met Sergey Brin, also at Stanford. Combining Brin’s mathematical expertise, the two created Larry’s PageRank algorithm, which ranks search results based on link behavior. These two technologies laid the foundation for what was then the world’s most powerful search engine, which was launched on the Stanford University network in August 1996.

September 4, 1998: Google raises $100,000 in angel funding

Larry Page and Sergey Brin renamed their company and moved into the garage of Susan Wojcicki, who would later become CEO of YouTube. They registered the company as Google, and Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim invested $100,000 in it. Schmidt joined Google’s board in March 2001 as chairman and became the company’s CEO in August. Mr. Schmidt stayed in the job for 10 years, through Google’s 2004 initial public offering, its acquisition of YouTube and the launch of products like Google Docs and Gmail, and saw the company rise to become a search giant. In 2011, he became executive chairman and Page became chief executive.

Summer 2002: Yahoo tries (and fails) to buy Google for $3 billion

Long before “Google” became a verb, Yahoo was the leading Internet search engine. In the summer of 2002, Yahoo tried to buy Google for $3 billion, but Google reportedly rejected the deal, feeling it was worth at least $5 billion. Today, Google and its parent company, Alphabet, are worth $840 billion. Yahoo, on the other hand, was sold to Verizon in 2017 for less than $5 billion.

July 2003: Google moves into the Googleplex

April 1, 2004: Gmail is released to the public with 1GB of storage

In 2001, Google employee Paul Buchheit began working on an email product designed to meet the company’s growing internal communication and storage needs. Buchheit decided to use Ajax to build a faster, more responsive client (and then a new set of Web development techniques that would allow the product to receive information from the server without reloading the entire page).

On April 1, 2004, Google introduced Gmail to the public, with 1GB of storage and advanced search capabilities that dwarfed its peers at the time, as they offered only a few megabytes of storage.

August 19, 2004: Google goes public

February 8, 2005: Google Maps is released

“Maps are very useful and fun,” Google said when it first introduced them in 2005. Google Maps at the time featured step-by-step instructions and a zoomable map, as well as some searchable businesses like hotels. Google only introduced GPS steering for maps on smartphones in 2009.

January 27, 2006: Google launches its search engine in China

Although Google has been offering a Chinese-language version of its search site to Chinese users since September 2000, its servers are located in California and have been affected by blockages and firewall slowdowns. In 2006, Google set up a subsidiary in China to compete more effectively with Baidu, which was heavily censored as a result.

April 14, 2007: Google buys DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, solidifying its dominance of the advertising industry

September 2, 2008: Google launches Chrome

Google hired several Mozilla Firefox developers, who worked together to create Chrome for Windows and later versions for other operating systems. In just four years, Google’s browser has become more popular than Both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Chrome is now the world’s dominant web browser, with a global usage rate of around 60%.

September 23, 2008: Android launches its first smartphone, the T-Mobile G1 / HTC Dream

Google bought Android in 2005 for $50 million. On September 23, 2008, Android launched its first smartphone, the T-Mobile G1 / HTC Dream.

March 22, 2010: Google is kicked out of China after ending censorship

In early 2010, Google discovered a phishing attack on its infrastructure in China aimed at extracting the email addresses and personal information of Chinese human rights activists. The attack prompted Google to change the way it does business in China. Soon after, Google was banned from China.

Aug. 13, 2010: Oracle files a lawsuit against Google

The case revolves around the Java API and whether Google copied it in Android, infringing On Oracle’s IP. Eight years on, Oracle is now the victor, and Google is trying to appeal to the Supreme Court.

October 2010: Google begins work on a self-driving car

In 2010, Google introduced seven Toyota Priuses — hybrid cars outfitted with sensors and loaded with artificial intelligence. Google’s experiment a few years later spawned an independent company called Waymo.

June 15, 2011: Chrome OS debuts

Chrome OS is an open source system now known as Chromebook. At first, Google released its source code and then gave a demonstration of the new operating system. By June 2011, the first Chromebooks made by Acer and Samsung were available in retail stores. Since then, Chromebooks have become a major force in education.

June 28, 2011: Google+ launches

June 2012: Google Glass with skydiving demo

July 1, 2013: Google Reader shuts down

July 24, 2013: Google unveils Chromecast

January 24, 2014: Google acquires AI research lab DeepMind

Google reportedly beat Out Facebook to acquire DeepMind simply by promising to set up an independent ethics committee to oversee the company’s technology. DeepMind’s success has been hailed as a global scientific achievement, emblematic of the current craze for ARTIFICIAL intelligence. (No doubt they also provide inestimable value for Google’s recruiting and marketing efforts.)

DeepMind revived its business after its initial foray into the UK healthcare system was foiled, and it has also started to inject its expertise directly into Google’s systems, improving Google’s speech synthesis technology and reorganising its data centres to make them more efficient.

Google is widely seen as a global leader in artificial intelligence. This would not have happened without DeepMind.

December 13, 2016: Waymo, Google’s self-driving project, becomes a separate company under Alphabet

Google’s years of testing and deep pockets have put Waymo on the fast track for self-driving cars, as they are known. The company is already testing rides to real customers in Arizona and plans to roll out a full commercial service in 2018. Waymo remains one of the most successful projects in The Google X lab.

July 18, 2018: Google is fined $5 billion by the European Union for monopolizing Android

The commission determined that Google induced users to prioritise its own shopping service in ads displayed in its Chrome browser, which comes pre-installed on most Android smartphones by default.

Google was eventually fined $5 billion for android antitrust violations.

A month later, Mr. Trump accused Google of organizing leftist news media. Google could face more legal challenges.