Twitter’s Most Memorable Moments

On Twitter’s 10th birthday we look back at the site’s most noteworthy milestones…

Twitter turns 10 years old today, making us all feel incredibly old and nostalgic. The past decade has seen a great change thanks to Twitter, allowing us to communicate freely with influential figures and make our voices heard on a global scale. If you want to know what the Pope is thinking, what Katy Perry ate for breakfast or send a message directly to Tim Peake up in space, you can, all thanks to Twitter. That’s pretty amazing.

Over the years the site has achieved some truly great things and passed incredible milestones, becoming an immediate platform for breaking news stories and a network for uniting people across the globe in times of tragedy, celebration and hope.

To commemorate an incredible decade, here are some of Twitter’s most memorable moments…

March 2006

Twitter was officially born and its creator: Jack Dorsey (@Jack) sent the first ever tweet to an empty twittersphere before inviting friends to join. August 2007

The hashtag (first proposed by Chris Messina: @ChrisMessina) debuted on Twitter and became an important pillar of online society. #thowback January 2009

Twitter became a platform for breaking news when the infamous US Airways flight made an emergency landing in the Hudson River, and Janis Krums (@jkrums) was the first to cover it, tweeting this viral photo from the scene. April 2009

Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) became the first ever person to reach 1 million followers, now a feat boasted by many A-listers, Katy Perry being the most followed Twitter account ever with just under 85 million. January 2010

Astronaut TJ Creamer (@Astro_TJ) created perhaps the most memorable Twitter moment, sending the first tweet from space. Now astronauts tweet freely from the International Space Station. November 2010

The Royal Family embraced the social networking site, creating an online account from Clarence House: the Prince of Wales' private office, to announce via Twitter the engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton. It created almost as much buzz as when the Queen donned a pair of 3D glasses! April 2011

Twitter was once again the first to cover a huge breaking news story when Sohaib Athar (@ReallyVirtual) inadvertently live-tweeted the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. November 2012

President Obama (@BarackObama) marked his second presidential win with this heart-warming tweet before having an official interview, which was retweeted over 2 million times, at that time breaking the record for most retweets. December 2012

Pope Benedict (@Pontifex) got with the times and became the first Pope to join Twitter, even going on to create 8 separate accounts to Tweet in different languages. April 2013

Twitter became a tool of unity during the Boston Marathons as over 27 million Tweets were sent from around the world, spreading news of the bombings, assisting the manhunt, and keeping up the spirit of @BostonStrong. July 2013

Prince George’s birth caused hype across the globe, with 2 million Tweets discussing the new @RoyalBaby and guessing the sex and potential baby names. December 2013

Nelson Mandela's death caused a Twitter overload as millions of users signed on to pay tribute to the 95 year old. Tweets about his death spiked at 95,000 tweets per minute, flooding the site. March 2014

You may remember this photo as the tweet that broke Twitter. Ellen DeGeneres took a star studded selfie during the 2014 Academy Awards of herself, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Jared Leto, Channing Tatum and Bradley Cooper. The Tweet went viral, breaking the world record and crashing twitter for 20 minutes. April 2014

In response to a mass kidnapping in Nigeria, Twitter got political and a movement was made, featuring millions of tweets mentioning #BringBackOurGirls. June 2015

Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) joined Twitter and broke the world record, reaching 1 million followers in less than four hours. You go, girl. November 2015

Twitter once again proved itself as a strong support network, unifying the world in the wake of the horrific Paris attacks and breaking news and spreading support as the drama unfolded. The hashtag: #PrayForParis went viral and brought countries, communities and individuals together. February 2016

Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDicaprio) proved himself to be popular with his much anticipated Oscar win sparking a Tweet spike of 440,000 Tweets per minute, breaking a record previously set during Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar selfie.