9 Things That Turn 20 This Year — Prepare to Feel Old

Before there was eBay, there was AuctionWeb, launched on Sept. 3, 1995, by Pierre Omidyar. It was a side project until his Internet provider wanted to start charging him more for bandwidth. So he decided to charge a fee for users. It remained AuctionWeb until 1997, when it changed its name to eBay. In 1998, when the company went public, Omidyar became a billionaire. In 2005, The New York Times reflected on the early days: "First the techies came, buying and selling computer parts. Then the collectors came — at one point, more than 6 percent of all sales were for Beanie Babies. Then everyone came."