A brief look back at how Facebook wove its way into our hearts and minds over the past six years:

12 Facebook Milestones:

October 2003 – Facebook founder Mark E. Zuckerberg unveils Facemash to his fellow students at Harvard University. The site was the college’s version of “Am I Hot or Not?”

February 2004 – Facebook is born in a Harvard dorm room with the help of co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin. Well, technically The Facebook… somewhere along the way all the cool kids decided that dropping the “the” was the way to go. In four days, over 650 Harvard students register.

March 2004 – The Ivy League smarties get all the awesome stuff….Facebook makes its way into the lives of those students at Stanford, Columbia and Yale, but soon it would be sweeping the nation.

September 2004 – The Wall makes its debut.

September 2005 – College co-eds are forced to co-exist on Facebook with high schoolers as high school networks are added to the site. Facebook loses some cool points with the college crowd.

October 2005 – Untag photos added. Drunken party photos (aka the Beer Guy photo) and glamour shots along with those cute retro little kid pics take over.

April 2006 – Facebook Mobile launches, sucking us in on the go.

September 2006 – Everybody’s welcome on Facebook as a flood of moms, dads, grandparents and that weird cousin you try to avoid at family functions join the site.

February 2007 – Happy Valentine’s Day! I didn’t get you an actual gift to express my love, I sent you this virtual heart-shaped box of chocolate instead. Enjoy!

April 2008 – Chat takes it to a whole new level. Where’s the offline feature?

February 2009 – I “like” you and your post on Facebook.

July 2010 – Facebook hits the over 500 million users mark. Man, that’s a lot of potential Facebook friends…

Your 12 Facebook Milestones:

1. Poking wars. Enough said.

2. Being Facebook friends with a friend’s friend who you’ve never met.

3. The Facebook time warp. Where did those three hours go?

4. Stalking your unrequited love or your ex. Admit it, you’re guilty…we all are. And, just think… maybe someone is Facebook stalking you…

5. In limbo. The friend requests that never quite get approved.

6. Want to know what musical instrument you are? There’s a quiz for that.

7. Relationships are already messy when they come to an end and now you have to confront it in front of the Facebook universe as you change your status from “in a relationship” to “single.” That little broken heart icon is such a downer. Cue the flood of wall posts or messages asking you what happened. Ugh. Maybe you should just deactivate your page…

8. You delete your MySpace.

9. Your parents join Facebook and see your friend's F-bomb on your wall. Your Mom comments to reprimand you and your friend's language via your wall.

10. Your friend has a baby and suddenly her profile, photo albums and status updates have been taken over by her offspring.

11. R.I.P. Scrabulous. We’ll miss you until the next Scrabble app comes along.

12. Can’t remember what you did last night? Don’t worry, your friend posted a photo album filled with all those moments to embarrass you.

Images courtesy of Getty Images and FacebookFails.com

Nikita Palmer for Citadel Digital © 2010