Happy 17th Birthday, Google! Here Are 17 Random Facts To Celebrate

Google turns into an almost-adult today.

Although unsure of the exact date of its incorporation - as previous celebrations have fallen on Sept.7, 8, 26 and 27 - Google has decided put on a birthday hat and mark its 17th year on Sept. 27.

"In the world of computer programming, 17 is widely considered the least random number. To assume we made it this far without a little luck, though, would be like assuming lava lamps, turtlenecks and servers held together by building blocks are harbingers of success," shares the company.

Google offers a glimpse into their early days before they established themselves as the world's go-to search engine.

"For our 17th birthday, we offer a glimpse into our humble beginnings, when branded hockey jerseys were cool and Savage Garden had a number-one single," Google says.

To celebrate this milestone, here are 17 random facts you may or may not know about Google.

1. Fourteen percent of Google employees have not gone to college. This is because Google deems tests scores and GPAs as criteria that bear no relevance to the hiring process.
2. Google's first name was "BackRub." Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who met at Stanford, collaborated on this search engine in 1996. It operated on Stanford servers for over a year, but took up too much of the university's bandwidth.
3. A new Google employee is called a "Noogler."
4. A Google employee is called "Googler."
5. If you type the word "askew" in the Google search engine, your results will be slanted to the right.
6. To capture a desert in Street View, Google hired a camel.
7. Google News lets you search newspaper archives up to the 1880s.
8. Google Maps also includes underwater sea life, coral reefs and wrecks.
9. The stars, constellations, galaxies and planets can likewise be viewed in Google Sky Maps.
10. The founders of Google insist that the home page be kept simple, and prefer that the words found on the home page be 28 words or less.
11. You can do a Google backwards search at https://elgoog.im.
12. Trying to impress your dinner date? Type "calculate tip" in the search box and watch the magic happen.
13. Ed Sheeran may have made Lego houses, but Google's first storage rack was made of Lego. It stored 10 40-gigabyte hard disks.
14. "Googleplex" is the term used to refer to Google's headquarters. This word is a combination of Google + complex. It also alludes to the word "googolplex" which is equivalent to ten raised to the power of a googol.
15. You can play Atari Breakout when you search for it in Google Images!
16. Google provides gourmet meals three times a day to its employees.
17. Nostalgic for Google's old layout? You can do a search for "Google in 1998" to travel back in time!

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