Microblogging service Twitter is going public and no one can stop it.  In the process of filing for an IPO, Twitter’s obligated to release some facts and figures that may otherwise have never been released as official metrics from the mobile platform.

We now know that Twitter’s revenue for 2012 was at $316.9 million, and that amount is expected to be surpassed this year, given that its revenue for the first half of 2013 has already reached $253 million.

The social network is looking to raise $1 billion when it goes public, money that will be used to expand Twitter in terms of infrastructure, operations, marketing, and development.  And if you’re wondering what the ticker would be once Twitter goes public, it’s TWTR.

Before Twitter goes public, expected to officially hit the trading floors this December, let’s take a look back at Twitter’s journey, how it has transformed social media and affected lives, to eventually reach its inevitable IPO.

Twitter: from 2006 to IPO

March 2006

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey delivered the very first tweet.  Dorsey referred to it as twttr as that was what it was called back then.

just setting up my twttr

— Jack Dorsey (@jack) March 21, 2006

March 2007

After a year, Twitter has failed to get traction, but during the SXSW festival that year, it set up large screens where in live tweets were shown regarding the event.  Interest in the service increased and by the end of that week, Twitter usage tripled.  This brought to light the interest in real-time information.

April 2008

Twitter was used by an American graduate student who was arrested at an anti-government protest in Mahalla, Egypt to alert his friends of what happened to him.

January 2009

A US Airways plane made a miraculous landing on the Hudson River after it hit a bird during take off.  One hundred and fifty five passengers were on board and they waited on the plane’s wings to get rescued.  By standers who witnessed the incident used Twitter to deliver real-time news and has solidified Twitter’s reputation as an important news-gathering tool.

June 2009

Ashton Kutcher was the first Twitter user to reach one million followers.

August 2009

Twitter user Justin Halpern was so amused by his dad’s view on life that he created an account called “Sh*t My Dad Says” which inspired the CBS short-lived sitcom of the same title starring William Shatner.

January 2010

The very first tweet from space came from Astronaut Timothy Creamer.

Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s

— TJ Creamer (@Astro_TJ) January 22, 2010

November 2012

President Barack Obama announced his re-election and it broke previous Twitter records.

Four more years. pic.twitter.com/bAJE6Vom

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 7, 2012

December 2012

Pope Benedict XVI joined Twitter as @Pontifex, becoming the first pontiff to do so.

January 2013

Twitter users in Japan and Korea set a record by posting 33,388 tweets per second in their time zone as the New Year dawned on January 1.

January 2013

Twitter launched video-looping Vine app which Facebook was quick to block users from finding people using the service.

February 2013

This year’s Super Bowl saw an average of 231,500 tweets per minute during the 34 minutes that the teams were forced to sit on the sidelines because of the power interruption, accounting for a whopping 7.8 million of the 22.1 million total tweets about the game and halftime show.

These are just some of the events that has been made really interesting because of Twitter.  For more Twitter fun facts, check out the weirdest and funniest first Tweets from famous people here.