Timeline of Wikipedia

This is a timeline of FIXME.

Sample questions

The following are some interesting questions that can be answered by reading this timeline:

Big picture

Time period	Development summary	More details

Full timeline

• We do not include:

• Controversies: see List of Wikipedia controversies

Year	Month and date	Event type	Details
1993	–	Concept Proposal	Rick Gates, a computer scientist and advocate for online information sharing, makes the earliest known proposal for an online encyclopedia. This proposal outlines the concept of a collaborative, digital resource where users can freely contribute and access knowledge, laying the foundation for later initiatives like Wikipedia.
1998	–	Concept Proposal	Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, proposes the idea of a "free-as-in-freedom" online encyclopedia. His vision includes the principle that no central authority should control editing or access, directly opposing the proprietary models of contemporaneous encyclopedias like Microsoft Encarta or Encyclopædia Britannica.
2001	January 13	Domain Registration	The domain wikipedia.org is officially registered, signaling the creation of a new free-content encyclopedia. This event marks the beginning of what would become one of the most significant and widely-used knowledge repositories on the internet.
2001	January 15	First Edit	Wikipedia’s first edit is made, marking the platform's launch as a live site. Just two days after the domain registration, Wikipedia begins its journey as a space where volunteers from around the world can collaborate to create and edit articles, significantly lowering the barriers to contribution compared to Nupedia.
2001	–	Licensing Change	The license for Wikipedia’s predecessor, Nupedia, is changed to the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), which allows content to be freely used, modified, and shared. This open license becomes a cornerstone for Wikipedia’s ethos of free knowledge, encouraging broad participation and redistribution.
2014	–	Reader Statistics	By this year, Wikipedia attracts approximately 495 million monthly readers worldwide, reflecting its status as a major source of free information on the web. This level of readership showcases its vast reach and the growing public reliance on the site for accurate, up-to-date knowledge.
2015	–	Visitor Statistics	According to comScore, Wikipedia achieves over 115 million monthly unique visitors from the United States alone in 2015. This figure highlights the platform’s popularity in one of the largest internet markets and its role as a key player in digital education and information dissemination.
2018	September	Page Views	Wikipedia and its associated projects receive 15.5 billion monthly page views. This surge in traffic illustrates the platform’s enduring significance and widespread use across various languages and regions, underscoring its role as one of the world’s most important online resources.

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by FIXME.

Funding information for this timeline is available.

Feedback and comments

Feedback for the timeline can be provided at the following places:

• FIXME

What the timeline is still missing

• feature/update
• language versions
• userbase evolution
• research
• criticism (e.g. by notable people)
• public opinion
• government intervention
• notable policies by the Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation
• controversies
• references to Wikipedia in popular culture
• philosophies among Wikipedians (e.g. inclusionism vs exclusionism)
• competition
• awards
• parodies
• other