BILLIONS OF MESSAGES are fired off each week via Twitter, many of which capture defining moments in history, or in the evolution of the San Francisco-based firm.
Below is a sampling of 10 memorable tweets since the Twitter era began.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet, an automated message saying “just setting up my twttr.” That same day, he sent the first live tweet, “inviting coworkers.”
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US university student James Buck got off a one-word tweet after being taken into custody by Egyptian authorities at an anti-government protest in that country. In what is seen as an early demonstration of the power of Twitter to rally people to a cause, the resulting outcry prompted authorities to quickly restore his liberty. He proclaimed his release in a tweet reading “Free.”
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A US Airways jet crash-landed on the Hudson River in New York. This tweet and others by witnesses and passengers was accompanied by a link to a picture of the scene, breaking the news well ahead of mainstream media outlets.
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Talk show queen and media royalty Oprah Winfrey took Twitter mainstream with her debut post and now has more than 21 million followers.
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Astronaut Mike Massimino makes history with the first tweet from space.
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“Twitter Revolution”
June 2009
Not a specific tweet, but an unofficial name given to a bold movement by thousands of Iranians who took to the streets to protest what they saw as a rigged presidential election and used Twitter to thwart government efforts to block them from communicating with one another and the world. Two years later, Twitter would become a vital tool used in “Arab Spring” series of uprisings in an array of countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
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IT consultant Sohaib Athar unknowingly tweeted about US Navy Seals raiding a nearby home in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was hiding. Bin Laden was killed during the operation.
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US President Obama put out word of his election victory along with a picture of him and his wife, Michelle, hugging. The post was “retweeted” more than 800,000 times, becoming the most shared Twitter message to date.
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Pope Benedict XVI launched the first papal Twitter account, which was continued by his successor, Pope Francis. The number of followers following one of the several @pontifex handles has increased to over 10 million this year.
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“Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.”
April 2013
Hackers from a group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army commandeered a news wire account and posted this bogus message, showing that Twitter has become such a trusted place for the latest information – and not always advisedly so – that it had become a target.
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