The first video ever uploaded to YouTube

Today is the anniversary of the first video being uploaded to YouTube.

On February 14, 2005, Chad Hurly, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim purchased a domain name that would forever change the way media is disseminated and consumed. That’s when the aforementioned individuals got together and purchased the YouTube.com domain.

YouTube was famously founded by the trifecta of Hurly, Chen, and Karim, three early employees of PayPal. In preparation for launching the site, Karim uploaded the first video to it on April 23, 2005.

So, without further ado, behold, a video titled, “Me at the zoo” that depicts Karim himself at the San Diego Zoo, chillin’ with some elephants.

The first preview of the site was made available to the public on May 19,2005, and as of April 23, 2019, the video has accumulated over 66 million views and approximately more than 2 million comments.

Some YouTube statistics: Today, more than 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. That’s more than 12 days of video uploaded per minute! Every day more than 30 million people come to YouTube to access news, answer questions and have a little fun.

YouTube sure has come a long ways from its first video, which just featured a 25-year-old developer hanging out at the zoo.

via YouTube