Facebook first came out on February 4, 2004, when it launched as “TheFacebook” for Harvard students.

Quick Scoop

  • Launch date: February 4, 2004, originally under the name “TheFacebook”.
  • Original audience: Harvard University students only, before expanding to other U.S. colleges.
  • Founders: Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes (all Harvard students at the time).

From Dorm Site to Global Network

  • The site started in a Harvard dorm room as a student social network and rapidly spread to other elite universities like Yale and Stanford in 2004.
  • By mid‑2004, hundreds of thousands of students from dozens of schools were using the platform, setting up the path to its global growth later in the 2000s.

Name Change and Opening Up

  • In 2005, “TheFacebook” dropped the “The” and became simply “Facebook,” matching the name most people know today.
  • By 2006, Facebook opened registration to anyone aged 13 or older with a valid email address, moving beyond its college-only roots.

Mini Timeline

  1. 2003: Precursor project “Facemash” is created at Harvard and quickly shut down.
  1. February 4, 2004: “TheFacebook” launches for Harvard students.
  1. 2004: Expands to other universities in the U.S. and Canada.
  1. 2005: Renamed “Facebook”.
  1. 2006: Opens to the general public (13+ with email).

In everyday use, when people ask “when did Facebook come out,” the key date is February 4, 2004, the official launch of the original site at Harvard.

TL;DR: Facebook came out on February 4, 2004, as “TheFacebook,” first for Harvard students and then quickly for other universities before going public to everyone in 2006.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.