[VIRAL FLASHBACK] Here are 5 Tweets That Made History

Twitter has been with us since 2006, and during its time on the internet, it became an important witness to many events in world history.

Thanks to its simplicity, microblogging capabilities, and its popularity worldwide, it became a way of announcing or journaling these events in real-time.

Here are some of the most popular tweets that have made history so far:

The First Tweet

Let's begin, as is right, with the tweet that started it all. When Twitter launched on July 15, 2006, its then-CEO, Jack Dorsey, tested the short messaging service's capabilities by publishing the first tweet in the platform's history.

Dorsey kept the tweet short and simple as it was only a test and to make do with the limited number of characters he could use, which was only 140 back then - the same character limit or text messages used on mobile phones at the time.

The platform's first tweet is now an NFT, but thanks to the crypto crash, its worth is now less than what it was when it was first sold, per Forbes.

Ellen DeGeneres' Oscars Selfie

Moving on from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, another tweet that made history was Ellen DeGeneres' "Oscars Selfie" during the 2014 Academy Awards.

The selfie includes famous actors and actresses such as Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper (the one holding the camera), Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Lupita Nyong'o, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Jared Leto, and DeGeneres herself, per Medium, The Hollywood Reporter, and Guinness Book of World Records.

The Tweet got over 2.1 million likes and 2.9 million retweets, making it one of the most-liked tweets in the platform's history.

The First Tweet From Space

Now, we go from the confines of the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles, to the vastness of space. Or at least Earth's orbit. Although Twitter is still in its infancy and is still gaining steam to become the microblogging giant we know now, it was already popular enough for astronaut TJ Creamer to make the first tweet in space.

To be specific, Creamer published the first tweet in space from the International Space Station, which started a trend for astronauts to tweet their thoughts and photos of Earth on the platform, per The Things.

This trend was allegedly responsible for piquing the interest of a whole generation to become interested in space exploration.

Mars Has Water Ice

We've always thought of Mars to be Humanity's next home. However, the most important requirement to make life sustainable - liquid water - establishing even a single settlement is just a dream.

Everything changed when on June 20, 2008, NASA's Mars Phoenix rover discovered water ice on the Red Planet's surface means that life is not only sustainable there, but it also means that life may have once existed on the planet, per Wired.

Interestingly, the tweet about Mars having water ice isn't made by NASA's team. Instead, it was made by the Phoenix rover itself, meaning that the tweet is one of it, not the first tweet made on the Red Planet.

Obama's "Create Change" Tweet

Back to Earth and into the mid to late 2010s, to the time when then-President Barack Obama was saying his goodbyes to the American people after staying in office for two terms.

During this period in America's history, President Obama left the White House with a series of tweets addressed to his supporters, thanking them for their hard work and calling on them to remain active in creating change.

According to the President's tweet, the last thing he asked from his supporters was the first thing he asked of them: to believe not in his ability to create change but in theirs.

The tweet received 1.6 million likes and around 725,500 tweets, making it one of the most popular tweets in history, per TIME.