History Today: How a side project in 2006 became Twitter and eventually X

On July 15, 2006, Twitter (now called X) became available to the public. Over the next ten years, the platform grew to have more than 300 million users.

The online microblogging site was launched by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone.

Also on this day in 1997, Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace was murdered by serial killer Andrew Cunanan.

As part of Firstpost Explainers’ History Today series, here’s a look at what happened on July 15:

Twitter was launched

On this day in 2006, Twitter, now called X, was launched as Odeo’s side project that let users send short status updates to groups of friends by texting a single number.

In the years that followed, Twttr became Twitter, and the simple idea of “microblogging” quickly gained popularity.

It went on to become one of the top social media platforms in the world.

Notably, Jack Dorsey came up with the idea of letting people send personal updates through SMS to groups.

Six months after the launch, Twttr became Twitter. When it was made public, its creators added a 140-character limit to messages, which matched the standard length of a text message at the time.

This was later changed to 280 characters.

By 2013, the New York Times reported that Twitter had more than 2,000 staff members and over 200 million active users. In November that year, the company went public with a value of just over $31 billion.

Twitter had a big role in influencing politics and culture in the early 21st century.

In April 2022, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed plans for Twitter to merge with one of Elon Musk’s companies, X Holdings.

After Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, he began the process of merging it with X and changing its brand.

The merger with X Corp. was completed in April 2023.

In a court document filed in California in early April 2023, it was stated that Twitter, as a company, “no longer exists.”

Gianni Versace was killed

On this day in 1997, world-famous Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace was shot and killed by Andrew Cunanan outside his mansion in Miami.

Versace was hit twice in the head, and Cunanan ran away from the scene.

Notably, Cunanan had no past criminal record before he began a string of killings in Minneapolis in the spring of 1997.

With the FBI already searching for him, Cunanan travelled to Miami Beach. On July 11, a fast-food worker recognised him, but police got there too late.

Four days later, he shot Versace dead outside his South Beach home.

Both Cunanan and Versace were openly gay and moved in similar social groups, but police found no proof they had ever met.

Versace’s murder led to a major manhunt for Cunanan, who was known for changing his look in every photo.

On July 23, the search ended just 40 blocks from Versace’s mansion, on a houseboat that Cunanan had broken into.

There, police found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. The weapon matched the one used in two other killings.

He did not leave a note.

This Day, That Year

1916: The Boeing Company, first named Pacific Aero Products Co., was set up in Seattle.

1971: Former US President Richard Nixon said he would visit communist China the next year. This was a major shift in US-China ties.

1996: American news channel MSNBC was launched by Microsoft and NBC, part of General Electric.

2020: George Floyd’s family filed a case against the city of Minneapolis and the four police officers charged in his death, saying the officers violated his rights and that the city had allowed a culture of force, racism and lack of accountability in its police force.