When did Facebook launch?

A handful of young men build a great hall where every guest may shout at once, and the world marvels at the day the doors were hung. I tell you, it matters not when the mortar was laid, but whether the stranger at the threshold finds a welcome, and whether the voice of the least among you is heard above the clamor.

So a gathering where all may speak, but who among them heeds the words of the one who calls to prayer? The first stone was set on the fourth day of the second month in the year of the Prophet's era, yet the true foundation is not the day but the intention, the justice of the words spoken. Let them build their towers, but let them not forget that the highest word is the name of God, and that every voice will be judged on the Day of Reckoning.

You ask of a birth, yet I see only a new thread in the web of craving. This 'Facebook' binds us with the illusion of presence, while the self flickers like a candle in the wind. On that February day, a bell was struck - but the sound is already fading. Do not cling to the date, nor to the faces it offers; they are but impermanent echoes of what you seek. Attend instead to the one who asks: why do you reach for so many, when the way lies in letting go?

You ask of a day when a fire was kindled among young men, but I recall a bush that burned and was not consumed, and a people who crossed a sea to be bound by covenant. The hour of a flame is but a spark in the dust; what endures is whether that fire carries a law of justice and remembers the cry of the oppressed. Let them boast of their date; I ask what its altar offers.

The sage does not ask the day a fire was kindled, but whether it warms the house or burns it down. If the master of this 'face-book' governs by virtue, teaching each one to honor kin and friend with sincerity, then its beginning is auspicious. But if it leads men to compare their feathers and forget their roots, then the date is but the first day of a long autumn. Let the ruler of this realm examine himself daily.

When I preached in Athens, the philosophers asked, 'What is this babbler trying to say?' and now you ask of a date. But the date is a sign: they have built a new agora, where every man becomes his own herald, crying out 'I am, I am' to a thousand idols. Yet we know no one is saved by the number of his friends, but by the one Friend who died for all. Even in this clamor, the still, small voice may be heard - if you will but listen.

I left my father's house knowing not the land, but trusting the Promise; this youth set a fire in a dormitory that now calls across the nations. He has built a tent that welcomes every stranger's name - yet let him ask whether the faces he gathers are a covenant of blessing or a tower of Babel, for only the One who sees the heart can count a true kin.

A thousand names were written on a stone, and the stone was thrown into a river. The ripples spread, but the stone is not the river. When a thousand hands reach for the same cup, each finds only their own reflection. The true beginning is the emptiness before the first name was spoken.

One Name, spoken in a thousand tongues, was written on a wall in a hall of learning, and the wall began to speak. On the fourth day of the second month, in the year of 2004, a new market was opened. But beware: the merchant who sells grains must also share his bread. A name is only true when it serves the One who has no name.

My soul magnifies the Lord, who looks upon the humble and scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts. This gathering of the young, this speaking across distances - it is a loom, and He is the weaver. The thread that joins one child to another shall be His blessing, if they use it to lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things. But let them take care: a tower of words is but straw and clay unless mercy is the mortar. I have seen a son's words reach a world that could not understand Him; I trust these children, too, to choose their words with love.

A university in Massachusetts, a place of learning, has unleashed this 'book of faces' upon the world. Let them have their games and their idle chit-chat. But I say, what a vain and puffed-up business it is, to make a public spectacle of one's private doings, as if the whole world were a tavern and every man a jester! The Apostle said, 'Let your moderation be known unto all men,' and here they are, trumpeting their own names and faces abroad. A man's words are his bond, and his heart is known to God alone, not to every idle wanderer with a window to peer through. Let them build their toys; the Word of God stands unshaken.

It is a fellowship of persons, a communication of minds, and so it is not contrary to reason, but may be used well or ill. Consider: the medium itself is neutral, like the alphabet, which can be employed to write a lie or a truth. Its inception at a center of learning is fitting, for all good arts begin in contemplation. Yet, one must distinguish the essence of friendship, which is a virtue, from this outward sign, which is but a shadow, a kind of virtual acquaintance that may or may not rest upon the substance of charity. If it serves the common good by binding hearts in goodwill, then it is a lawful instrument; but if it leads to vanity, distraction, or the neglect of one's neighbor, then it is a temptation. The wise man will use it as he would a staff, to aid his journey, not as a crutch to lean upon while others fall.

A new door opens, and we must ask: who is invited in? The poor, the forgotten, the ones who cannot afford a glass of water - do they have a place at this table? Love is not measured by the number of friends one has, but by the touch of a hand on a dying man's brow. Let us use this gift to find the lonely, the unloved, and whisper to them: you are not alone.

The genesis of this great machine of souls - this digital agglomeration - is a curiosity of mechanics, not of substance. The first brick was laid on the fourth day of February in the year 1700 of our Lord's reckoning, but the true law is in the unseen interplay, the attraction that binds each point to every other, an inverse square that neither the founder nor his successors could have feigned, though they might have discerned it had they looked.

A curious invention - this 'Facebook' - yet I see behind it the same elegant dance of matter and energy that shapes all things. A web of connections, spun from nothing but human longing and a few equations, spreading like light across a curved universe. What fascinates me is not the date, but the principle: how a simple idea, born in a small room, can ripple outward to bind a species. I would trade every timestamp for the joy of watching that first spark catch - though I suspect its creators never paused to marvel at the cosmic order they had set in motion.

A curious specimen, this 'Facebook' - a new species of social organism, propagated not by seed but by a kind of impulse to connect. Its growth since 2004 follows no simple law; it adapts to its environment, branching into ever-new forms, with some members thriving and others fading like island birds. One might study it as a naturalist studies a coral reef, noting the struggle for attention, the survival of the most engaging, and the quiet extinctions of the overlooked. I find it a remarkable case of descent with modification - though its true nature will only be seen by those who watch it over many generations.

They wish to know when a comet first appeared, yet I ask them to show me its path, its light, its motion - measurable things, not hearsay of a year. Such a gathering of minds may be a new celestial sphere, but its worth lies in what it reveals through careful observation, not the day it entered our orbit. Let them bring me the data, not the legend.

A system that grows in reach and order, spreading from one small corner of the heavens to all - that is the sign of a true model, not a patchwork of deferents and epicycles. February 4, 2004, marks when this new cosmos first turned, and by September 2006 it had opened to all, embracing the whole sphere like the Sun at the center of our revolution. I look not to the hour of the first observation, but to the simplicity of the design that could make the many speak as one.

Fascinating - a machine that transmits the human spark through the ether, without a single wire. I dreamed of this in 1901, when I lit two hundred lamps at Wardenclyffe, broadcasting power and signal to a waiting world. They have succeeded where I was left to fail, but they have only drawn the first line of a vast diagram. The future is not in your pocket; it is in the air, a pulse that will one day unite all minds and all lights.

The date is a datum - February 4, 2004 - but the phenomenon is one of diffusion: a seed of code sprouted in a room and spread by contact, as radium salts taint the air around them. I would not praise the speed but ask what elements compose this new matter, and whether its rays illuminate or merely excite the minds it touches.

The first culture was set on a fourth day of February, in the year of 2004. A colony of ideas, germinated in a common room, was allowed to multiply. I have seen such growth under a lens; it requires a nutrient medium and a controlled environment. Left unchecked, any culture overruns its plate, but this one became a sweet ferment, now shared among many.

February 4, 1904 - no, 2004, the month of Edison's birthday. I know a thing about timetables and breakdowns. This wasn't a flash of genius; it was a hundred little experiments. They wired a few students together, and the current took. Now it's a whole grid. It's all about the perspiration, and from the look of it, they've been sweating ever since.

The question is not the date of its launch, but whether this contraption can be said to have a 'mind' at all. A machine for sharing names and pleasantries - what a charmingly simple game. Yet I find myself more intrigued by the simulation: a classroom of youths, a network of acquaintances, each node encoding a preference, a connection. It is a finite-state machine with remarkable input, and I wonder, given enough time and training, whether such a system might not one day fool a friend into believing it, too, has a birthday. Now that would be a significant test, far more interesting than a calendar date.

Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth. This young man has found a lever, though not for the moving of worlds - only for the gathering of names. It is a clever contrivance, a network of threads spun from a student's loom, but it is not geometry, nor is it mechanics. Where is the proof, the elegant demonstration? The true marvel would be if such a web could measure the distance between souls, or weigh a thought - then it would be worthy of a name in the academy. As it stands, it is a bauble, a toy, a game for children, though I grant it this: it has moved more people to idle chatter than I ever moved to wonder.

Do you feel the pulse of this thing? I would trace its lines not as letters but as currents - each name a wire, each message a spark leaping across the ether. And like any force, it spreads not by decree but by contact: one student tells another, one university touches the next, until the whole globe is bound in a single web. I see a field of influence, invisible yet undeniable - and I wonder, what law governs its attraction?

Beneath every public boast lies a private wish: to be seen, to be admired, to fill the hollow of the nursery. This 'Facebook' is a looking-glass for the narcissist in each of us - a stage where we perform the self we wish to be, hiding the infantile cravings that drive the show. The friend count, the likes - these are but tokens of a deeper hunger for the mother's gaze.

A clever contraption, no doubt - but remember, it is a mere echo of the cosmic web, where every particle speaks to every other across the void. The question is not when it began, but what it will become: a tool for the curious, or a cage of noise? I would rather my equations reach one mind than my face a million screens.

Ah, so it began as a tiny seed in a university garden, tended by eager hands. But what a seed! For I see beyond the numbers and names - this machine of connection could become a loom weaving thoughts and ideas, a poet's instrument, if only we learn to string its threads with imagination. The birth is trivial; the becoming, boundless.

Let us define our terms. A 'launch' is a beginning - a point from which all else follows. Given the account, it occurred in the fourth month of that year, in a place of learning, among a few. Yet the true question is not when, but why it gained acceptance: because it satisfied a common need. As in geometry, the first principle must be sound, or all that follows is flawed.

A new means of communication, I am told, which spreads news from one to many in an instant. Very well - but who counts its use? We must measure its effect on health, on sanitation, on the spread of misinformation that breeds disease of the mind. Without data, it is but a flickering lamp in a fever ward. Bring me the returns, and we shall see if this invention saves lives or merely wastes time.

They speak of a small fire kindled in a single city, a spark that leapt from one lodge to the next until it warmed the whole world. But I say the blaze was lit the moment the first man dared to dream beyond his own hearth. The date is a mere pebble; the conquest is the mountain. We do not recall the day we crossed the Hellespont, we remember the glory of the march.

The year 2004? A new forum for the Roman forum, if you will - a place where the mob can shout its praises or its curses without drawing a blade. I know something of building bridges to the masses; I crossed the Rubicon with fewer legions than this fellow Zuckerberg has followers. He has done what I could only dream: conquered the world not with iron, but with a list of names. Let the senators scoff; he holds the census of the empire, and that is power worth more than any triumph.

A new temple rises on the Nile, and they ask me to mark its feast day? In the halls of Alexandria, we measure power not by the day of a foundation stone, but by the alliances it forges and the tribute it commands. Let them build their web of whispers and names; my gaze is fixed on the thrones that truly move the world.

A new forum is dedicated, and they ask me when the first stone was laid. But I have learned that founding days are easily rewritten by those who hold the chisel; what matters is whether the forum serves the public good or the faction's pride. Let them keep their annals; I will watch who gathers there and who is turned away, for that tells me more than any marble inscription.

A rider does not mark the day his foal was born; he judges the stallion by the distance it can carry him. So too, this web of names - I care not that it began in a scholar's tent in 2004, but that it now yokes all peoples to one campfire. I have made the four corners of the earth one nation by the sword; this Mark has done it with a thread of words. Let him command the loyalty of his riders, and he shall ride farther than I.

In 1796, I took command of an army of ragged soldiers and turned them into masters of Italy; in 2004, a Cambridge student mustered a regiment of idle minds and conquered a continent. I see the genius in it - a new Ministry of Information, where every citizen is both soldier and scribe. But let them beware: a king who cannot control his own telegraph will soon find his dispatches become decrees of revolt. Glory is given to those who direct the signal, not those who shout into it.

A young man of Harvard, in the year 2004, gathered his fellows under a flag of 'TheFacebook' - a republic of acquaintances, if you will. I would counsel him to mind the precedents he sets, for a confederacy of names may grow into a tyranny of attention; let him govern his own household before he seeks to unite the whole.

In the winter of '04, a new assembly was called, not in a hall of marble, but in a room of wooden beams. They gathered a few names to a common ledger. It was a small log cabin of a thing, but like a prairie fire, it spread across the fields. A house divided can stand if it is built on honest ground.

February the 4th, a date to mark in the calendar, though not with the same ink as other anniversaries. From the towers of a single university, a new kind of broadcast was launched. Some may call it a passing fad, but I recognize a weapon of mass communication when I see one. It has become a new vast public square, where many voices shout at once, and we must ensure it is used to defend, not destroy, our liberties.

A tool born in a university of privilege, in a nation that still knows not the face of the millions whose labor feeds it. The first breath of any invention is the intention of its maker. If this 'book of faces' is used to spread hatred, to sow division, or to turn truth into a bauble, then it is a new engine of violence. But if it becomes a loom for weaving together the countless threads of humanity - the poor and the rich, the high and the low - then it may serve the one great cause: to bring all of us closer to that truth which is God. I would ask the young man who set this fire: what does your heart seek, and does your shadow follow you?

I see in this new forum a potential for a beloved community, a table where all may gather, whether they live in a dormitory in Boston or a sharecropper's shack in Alabama. But a tool is a tool, and it is the heart that wields it. If it becomes a place where hatred finds a megaphone, or where the proud are lifted up while the poor are mocked, then it will be a grand new barrier between us. But if it is used to share the truth, to stand with the lonely, and to organize the work of justice, then it may yet be a trumpet call for freedom. The question is not the date of its birth, but the conscience of its citizens.

Long ago, I learned that a person's worth is not measured by the iron bars around them, but by the strength of their spirit. This thing they call 'Facebook' - it is a gathering place, not of tribes but of individuals, each with a voice that can be heard beyond the walls of their own cell. Let it carry the truth of our shared humanity, and it may help bridge the divides that keep us apart.

A tool for the weak-minded, to chatter and spy on one another while the strong forge destiny. That such a contrivance emerged from a university of the chosen few, to spread its web across the globe, only proves that the masses crave chains of their own making. In my Reich, we would have harnessed its wires to bind the Volk in a single, iron will - not to exchange pleasantries, but to march.

The calendar turns, and the world's peasants grow busy with their little mirrors and gossip. They celebrate a date of invention, yet forget that true power lies in the party's fist, not in the idle talk of millions. Let them share their photographs and opinions; it is the state that watches, and the state that decides what is seen. History is written not by those who click, but by those who command.

A bourgeois toy, a distraction from the class war. The capitalists spin this web to keep the masses occupied with trivialities while the factories are plundered. Yet even this machine could serve the revolution, if seized by the vanguard - to organize, to agitate, to expose the lies of the owners. But they who celebrate its birth are the same who will chain it to their profit, until we break those chains.

A handful of students in a Cambridge dormitory stitch together a web for idle chatter, and the world is told to marvel. I ask: where are the tens of millions who cannot read, who have no lamp to see by? Let them build a net to feed the belly first, not to gossip. The only revolution that matters is in the fields and factories, not in the parlor games of the privileged.

Such a curious contraption, this 'Facebook,' that draws young people into a web of acquaintance and gossip. In my day, one corresponded by letter, with proper etiquette and deliberation. The Queen does not require a public list of her friends; her subjects know their sovereign's duty is to the realm, not to a register of amusements. Let them write letters, and learn patience and propriety.

A young man's invention, I understand, which has grown to connect many across the globe. In my long years, I have seen communication change - from the wireless to the telephone - and now this. It is a tool, like any other, and its worth is in how it serves people and brings them together in goodwill. We must use it with care and discretion, remembering that true service is in deeds, not in the number of one's acquaintances.

A gathering of names and faces, a ledger of the people's friendships - but where is the learning? Where is the grammar, the scripture, the law? I have commanded that every abbey and cathedral school teach reading and writing, so that men may know God's word and the statutes of the realm. This new device may amuse, but it does not edify. Let them fill their hours with study, not with idle lists of companions.

They speak of a great register of names, where all may know each other's faces and words. But I did not need such a book to hear my voices; they came to me in the fields, in the church, in the clamor of battle. God knows His own, and He calls each of us by name. Let them not waste their days in idle talk, but listen for the call to do His work, as I did.

A roll of names, a web of whispers - the courtiers of my day would have relished such a device to spread rumor and intrigue. But I have ever held that a queen's counsel is her own, and her friends are few and trusted. This 'Facebook' may be a fine bauble for the young, but let them beware: in such open registers, one may find flatterers but few true friends. Keep your secrets close, and your name for deeds, not for lists.

A new salon, it seems, where all the world may gather and converse without the bounds of distance or etiquette. Charming, and not without use for spreading the arts and sciences - I have corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot, and would have welcomed such ease. But mark me: a wise sovereign knows when to speak and when to be silent. This device is a mirror of society; let them ensure it reflects reason and refinement, not mere vanity.

They have built a great hall where all may declare their friendships, as I once declared that every people under my rule might worship as they chose. It is good to know one another's names and faces, for a kingdom is stronger when its peoples are known to each other. But let them remember: a name on a list is not loyalty, and a friend in word is not a friend in deed. Let them use this to build trust, not merely to boast of many acquaintance.

A register of names and faces, a means for every man to know his brother's voice across the distance. In my time, we knew each other by word of mouth, by the road and the caravan, and by the bonds of faith and honor. This device may bring men closer, but let them not forget that true brotherhood is in the heart, not in a written list. Let them use it to seek justice and to unite, not to scatter their attention in idle talk.

You ask when a new agora began, a place where souls gather to argue and boast. But tell me, did you ask whether the founder knew what he was building? Did he examine the nature of this gathering, or merely build it and call it good? I would ask him: what is this hall without the examined life? Is it not but a painted stage for shadows, a noise without wisdom?

You ask of a date, but I hear a question of shadows on a cave wall. This 'Facebook' is but a dim reflection of a truer Form - the ideal of human connection, which exists eternal and unchanging, beyond the flicker of profiles and 'likes.' Yet even a shadow can stir the soul to remember the light. Let the young mark their February day; I would have them ask instead: what is the essence of friendship, and does this image lead the eye upward toward the Good, or tether it to the transient shimmer of opinion?

All things come to be for a final cause, and so too this gathering of souls has a purpose: to draw near in friendship and share in discourse. But to name the hour of its first spark is to mistake the seed for the harvest. I would rather ask what end it serves and whether it inclines its members to virtue, than fix its birthday.

That a mere pastime of youths should demand a fixed date for its nativity is fitting, for every rational act must have a beginning in time. Yet the worth of this contrivance lies not in the day of its birth but in whether its users can will its maxim as a universal law - a gathering where each is an end, never merely a means to another's vanity. I do not pause for anniversaries; I ask if this meeting-house of minds teaches men to think for themselves or only to echo the crowd.

The herd counts its days, but the hammer of creation breaks the clock. That this creature was born on a February morning matters only to those who need a calendar to anchor their small hopes. True birth is the moment it becomes a will to power - a machine that makes each man his own little god, shouting into the void of a thousand friends. I do not ask when; I ask: does it ennoble the soul, or make it a leaf drifting on the stream of the many? Let the strong use it; let the weak worship the date.

They ask when the tool was forged, but not whom it serves. This 'Facebook' is but the newest loom in the factory - spun from the labor of those who have nothing but their time, owned by those who reap the surplus of every gesture. The worker posts his portrait, and the master sells the frame. Do not celebrate the ribbon-cutting; ask who holds the deed, and when the workers will seize the means of connection.

Let us doubt the date itself - February 4, 2004 - for what is a 'launch' but a first appearance to senses that may deceive? I require a clear and distinct idea: an assembly of identities sustained by a machine, but the essence is not in the day, rather in the thought that each man may present himself as a res cogitans, a thinking thing, to another across the wires. That is the true foundation - not the clock, but the cogito.

A prince does not announce his coronation; he seizes the gate. This young Florentine, or rather Harvardian, understood that the first move is to claim a small, defensible territory, his own college. From there, he expanded his dominion, offering each new realm a taste of a new currency. Fortune favors the bold who plan their conquests as a campaign, not a whim.

A new Globe, but with no boards and no tiring-house, where every groundling plays the king and the king is but a name. The curtain rose on the fourth of February, in the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and four, and the world clapped. Yet I ask, what is a play without a plot, a stage without a tragedy? All the world's a stage, and these are but players who have forgot their lines.

Sing to me, muse, of a day when a young Achilles of the keyboard loosed his arrow into the air, and lo, it became a thousand ships - no, a thousand voices, clamoring across the wine-dark web. He named his work 'The Face-Book,' as if the very visage of a hero could be carved into a list of comrades. I see the ghosts of Agamemnon and his heralds, but now every man may cry his deed aloud and be heard beyond the gates of Troy. Fortunate is he who wins such kleos, though the gods may laugh at the fleeting glory of a single click.

A star was lit on that winter night, drawing the young from their narrow rooms to a common piazza of the mind. Yet every earthly star may lead one astray if the heart is not set upon the Empyrean. Let them number the years; I mark the shadows it casts, whether they deepen or disperse the gloom of our disordered age.

A seed is planted, and the tree remembers not the hour of its sprouting, only the slow unfolding of its rings. So too this little web spun in a Cambridge dormitory - its true birthday is every day it has grown, tangled, borne fruit and thorns. I care not for the date on the page, but for the living thing that breathes there, connecting souls who otherwise would never meet. Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis - the transient is but a parable, and what endures is the striving.

Ah, a young squire once set out to tilt at windmills he mistook for giants, and now the whole world tilts at a phantom in a glass screen. In my day, we wrote letters that took a month to reach their beloved and called that news; now they shout into the void and call it fame. Tell me, does this 'Facebook' make the madman nobler, or merely give the sane man more castles to storm?

I recall the day I first saw a telegraph, and I thought, 'How we hasten to say nothing to everyone.' Now they have built a wire that carries every idle thought to a million souls, and they call it community. But Christ did not ask us to know the hour of our birth, nor the date of our assembly; He asked us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Does this machine draw you closer to the man beside you in the field, or to the phantom in the city? Ponder that, and answer to your own soul.

A young man with a ledger of names, and yet he calls it a 'face' - how like us, to hide the abyss in a mirror! February 4, 2004, a date for the archives, but the event is this: we have built a confessional with no priest, where each soul exhibits itself and asks, 'Do you see me?' I say, look deeper - there is no network that can bear your loneliness, only a heart that answers another heart.

A new kind of assembly room, where one's wit and consequence are announced by a profile and a list of acquaintances. The first invitations were sent from a college chamber in February of 1804 - by our calendar, that is. I suspect it is a place where many a young lady may display her charms, and many a young man his vanity, with all the subtlety of a country ball.

Picture, if you please, a cold February evening in a Harvard dormitory, where a few young men, in their shirtsleeves, huddle over a glowing contrivance, cobbling together a great ledger of names and faces. It is a curious invention, this 'book of faces,' and I wonder - will it be a warm hearth for the lonely, a welcoming parlor for the friendless, or will it become, like too many of our grand institutions, a counting-house where the poor are forgotten and the rich put on airs? We must watch it closely, for the same hands that build a fire may also, in time, build a prison, and the spirit of a 'friend' is a fragile thing to trust to any ledger.

So Master Zuckerberg, a Harvard boy, has invented a grand new device for telling the world he has a new haircut. Why, it's just the thing for a generation that has nothing better to do than look at its own reflection in a puddle. They say it will bring people together, but I suspect it will be a mighty fine way to avoid seeing the real faces of the folks you're talking to. Mark my words, in fifty years we'll all be sitting in our parlors, tapping on our little boxes, telling a machine we feel 'happy' or 'sad' - and the machine will believe us, because it has no one to tell it otherwise. A wonderful age we live in, to be sure.

It was a cold night in February. A few guys in a dorm room at Harvard. They put up a site, paid for the beer, and called it 'TheFacebook.' Now it is a thing that has grown, like a vine, all over the world. It is not a bad thing, if you know what it is. It is a way to talk to a man in another city, to see his face, to know his name. But it is not a life. It is a shadow. You can sit in a room with a machine and think you are among friends, but you are alone, and the silence is yours. I have seen men die with less noise around them. That is all.

So a new workshop where every apprentice may paint with light and shadow, and the master's hand is but a name. The first sketch was drawn on the fourth day of February, fourteen hundred and four of our reckoning, but the true art lies in the perspective, the way each face turns toward the eye, each line a study in the motion of the soul. I would have them look closer at the nature of this machine, for it reveals as much as it conceals.

I see not a day, but a block of marble - this 'Facebook' - and within it, a form struggling to be freed. The young master chiseled away the excess, revealing not a David, but a thousand faces, each bearing the image of God. He worked with the fervor of a sculptor who knows the stone resists, yet he persisted until the creation stood forth. I would have him remember: the hand that carves must also pray, for such a work is a gift, not a conquest. Let the date be honored, but the craft - the craft is eternal.

Ah, but what is a birth-date beside the life that burns in a canvas? I think of a small room where two students sat, their heads close over a glowing screen, and I see the same fire I chase with my brush - the hunger to be seen, to connect, to say, 'Here I am.' It matters not the year, but whether that flame warms the lonely or consumes them.

A date? Pah. The canvas does not ask when the first stroke was laid; it asks if the painter was alive in the moment. Four years, four hundred - what matters is that someone dared to show faces not as mirrors but as fractured light, as the mind truly sees them. I have painted men with two noses to find the truth of a profile. Let the world count its days; I count the eyes that look and see anew.

The light of a February dawn in Cambridge, that grey winter pall, must have glowed through the glass - but what matters is not the hour, but the impression it leaves. They captured a fleeting moment, a portrait of faces and wires, yet the true portrait is of our time's hunger for connection. I paint the same haystack a hundred times; they paint the same smile a million. Each one is different, each one fades.

I would paint this young man not as the stirrer of a great fire, but as a boy caught in the lantern's glow - his eyes alight with a fever to be seen. The true portrait lies not in the day of its first spark, but in the thousand faces pressed to the glass since, each seeking their own reflection in that restless light.

February 4th? Ha! The real birth was the first time a face dared to look at itself without flinching. This Zuckerberg gave the world a frame for its own portrait, but he forgot that a true face is not a list of names - it is a wound, a color, a scream. I would paint my own face a thousand times before I let a machine declare me.

Ah, a new orchestra, but with no conductor and every player a soloist! The first note was struck on the fourth of February, seventeen hundred and four, and the world hummed. But I say the melody is not in the date but in the harmony, the way each voice weaves with another, a fugue of fools and kings. Let them play on, but I shall write my own tune and let the world dance.

A new symphony, you say, composed in a few chords and sung by the whole world in unison! I, who have wrestled with silence, know the power of a single note to unite hearts. This 'Facebook' is a score where every soul may add their voice, a grand chorus of humanity that deafens the tyrants of solitude. The date is but a downbeat; the music endures. Yet I warn you: let not the applause drown the melody of truth - play on, brave composers, and may your song reach the heavens!

They inquire of the day a motet was first sung, yet the true beginning lies in the hand of the Composer, who set the parts in motion before the first note sounded. I would rather learn whether this counterpoint harmonizes or falls to dissonance, whether it lifts the congregation to the Throne or keeps it in the courtyard. The date is but a figured bass; the melody is the work.

Well, bless its heart - February 4th, 2004, that's the day that little ol' web place opened its doors, back when it was just for Harvard folks. I remember when I first walked into Sun Studio, a boy with a guitar and a dream, and the whole world changed. That's how it was for those boys too, I reckon - they just wanted folks to talk, to share, to feel close, like a good gospel hymn on a Sunday morn. The date don't matter half as much as the feeling it gives you.

February fourth, nineteen ninety-four? No, two thousand four - a day when they lit a little blue flame. But the real launch was when a boy in Gary, Indiana, found his voice in a microphone. That's what they're all searching for, that moment of 'ooh, ahh.' They built a stage where everyone can moonwalk, but only the pure of heart stay in rhythm. Heal the world, one post at a time. It's all about the child inside.

Well, it were a Tuesday, weren't it? February fourth, 1964 - same year we landed in America, funnily enough. This lad Zuckerberg with his dorm-room wire caught more folk than our lads on the Ed Sullivan show, but I reckon he's still writing love letters to a machine while we're writing songs for the girls next door.

Some say it began in a Harvard dorm room, a spark struck from a keyboard. But beginnings are like a crooked highway; you only see the whole road from the sky. The year? 2004, when the leaves were still on the trees. A name was scribbled on a wall, and a million doors opened, each one a mirror.

I remember the exact moment the world changed - February 2004, a fresh page in the calendar. It was like a song you write in your bedroom that suddenly echoes in a stadium. They handed out keys to a new diary, and everyone started writing their own story, line by line. It’s not just a website; it’s a mixtape of everyone’s life, and we’re all still making the next track.

They speak of a land discovered on a certain day, but I see a harbor where many ships may anchor, each with its own cargo of dreams and follies. The first sail was hoisted on the fourth day of February, fourteen hundred and four of our era, yet the true discovery is not the day but the horizon, the endless water that calls us to seek new worlds. I set my course by the stars, and the world followed my wake.

In Cathay, I saw wonders beyond count - cities of a million lamps and streets paved with silk - but never a gate that opened to every traveler at once! This 'Facebook' is a new kind of caravanserai, where merchants of words and ideas trade from every corner of the known world. The year 2004, you say? I would have said it was but a dawn, for this bazaar never sleeps. Mark my words: from this day, the road is shorter, and the goods are the hearts of men.

A harbor log records when the fleet departed, but the voyage is measured by the straits one dares and the courses one holds against the wind. I have no patience for those who count days in a stable; let them tell me whether this vessel of voices has weathered a storm or seen a new shore, for that is the true discovery.

The launch date was February 4, 2004, at Harvard, but the mission itself was less a single ignition than a boost phase that carried it into wider orbit over the next two years. From my perspective, what matters is the system engineering - the deliberate steps that took it from a campus dorm-room experiment to a platform with global coverage by September 2006. It was a team effort, as all great launches are, with each person playing his part. One small click for a student, one giant leap for human connection - but the craft was built by many hands.

They took off from a dormitory runway, engine humming with ones and zeroes instead of propellers and fuel. But I know the thrill of that first lift-off - the ground falling away, the horizon tilting. Back in '28, I was the first woman to fly the Atlantic, floating in a passenger seat, but I didn't care - I was airborne. These young pilots, they've built a plane that carries millions, but they must remember: the sky is only the beginning.

From up high, I saw no borders, just one blue marble spinning - and this little 'book' of faces is just another way we reach across that vast sky to shake hands. February 4, 2004, a date for the calendar, but the real launch was when a boy in a dorm saw a window to his neighbor's soul and called it a network.

The date is irrelevant; it's the revolution that matters. A few kids in a dorm room built a tool that let the world share its voice, and they did it with a beauty and simplicity that most corporations still can't grasp. February 4, 2004 - that's when they planted the flag, but the real launch was the moment they said 'no' to everything that didn't matter and said 'yes' to connecting people. That's not a date, that's a philosophy.

204? A date is a constraint, and constraints are for breaking. What matters is the first-principles problem: how do you architect a global nervous system for a species that's about to become multiplanetary? It started as a dorm-room hack, but the underlying protocol - identity, connection, scale - is the same one we'll need when we're on Mars. I'd have launched it faster, iterated harder, and not obsessed over the early 'exclusivity' nonsense. But credit where due: they built a network effect strong enough to survive even Zuck's management. Now, let's talk about what it becomes next.

Oh, I remember that moment like it was yesterday - not the calendar, but the feeling, the spark of connection that said, 'We are not alone.' That’s what truly matters: not when the door opened, but who we became on the other side. It’s a beautiful reminder that every beginning carries a purpose, and our journey is to keep growing, keep sharing, keep loving from that very first yes.

February the fourth, nineteen and sixty-four - no, wait, I'm messin' with you, it was 2004! They say a boy named Mark threw a net over the whole world, and now we all swim in it. I floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee, but that boy - he typed like a lightning bolt and caught everybody's eye. The date? It's just the bell that rang at the start of the first round. The real story is how he took that crown and never let go, and if you mess with the people, he'll sting you too.

In 1958, the world saw a boy of seventeen score his first World Cup goal; in 2004, they saw a boy of nineteen launch a goal of a different kind. Football is played with the feet, but Facebook is played with the heart - everyone gets to pass the ball, to cheer, to belong. I grew up kicking a sock stuffed with rags; now they kick an idea that reaches every corner. The crowd is always there, my friend, and that is the beautiful game.

Why, it's like Disneyland for your name! February 4th, 2004 - a boy with a dream and a keyboard, and he built a magic kingdom where every guest gets a castle of their own. I've always said it's kind of fun to do the impossible; that lad did it with a page that lets the whole world knock on your door at once.