On this day · archive
The search box meets the stock ticker
Google held its initial public offering on August 19, 2004. A company already reshaping how people found information entered the daily language of markets and shareholders.
8
events in todayish file
2004
Google holds its initial public offering on Nasdaq.
The familiar search company acquired a new public measure: a ticker, a share price, and the scrutiny of shareholders.
An initial public offering turns a company into a number watched beyond its offices. When Google reached Nasdaq in 2004, the business of search acquired the bright, restless measurement of a public market.
The moment joined two forms of attention. Users arrived with questions; investors arrived with expectations about how those questions could become a durable business.
August 19 marks the threshold where a sparse digital tool met the elaborate machinery of public ownership. The search box stayed simple, even as the company behind it became more visible and more consequential.
The full record
8 entries from the day’s archive, filed year by year with a note on what each one leaves behind.
Tens of thousands of farmed non-native Atlantic salmon are accidentally released into the wild in Washington waters in the 2017 Cypress Island Atlantic salmon pen break.
The pen break released a farmed non-native species into Washington waters and raised ecological concerns.
Environment
The Dhamara Ghat train accident kills at least 37 people in the Indian state of Bihar.
At least 37 people were killed near Dhamara Ghat station in Bihar.
Disaster
The last U.S. combat brigade leaves Iraq and crosses into Kuwait.
Combat operations were formally declared ended later that month; U.S. troops remained as the mission shifted to Operation New Dawn.
Conflict
A series of bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, kills 101 and injures 565 others.
The coordinated bombings killed 101 people and injured 565 across Baghdad.
Violence
The first-ever joint military exercise between Russia and China, called Peace Mission 2005 begins.
The exercise signaled expanding strategic cooperation between Russia and China.
Military
Google Inc. has its initial public offering on Nasdaq.
The offering opened Google to public shareholders and a new scale of market scrutiny.
Business
A truck-bomb attack on United Nations headquarters in Iraq kills the agency's top envoy Sérgio Vieira de Mello and 21 other employees.
The attack on the UN mission killed staff members and struck at international work in Iraq.
Violence
In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand the resignation of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević.
The rally made public opposition to Milošević visible in the streets of Belgrade.
Politics