---
title: "Which came first, Google or Tyrannosaurus rex?"
description: "Google vs Tyrannosaurus rex: Tyrannosaurus rex came first, by 68.002 million years — 68 million years ago against 1998. What happened in each case."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/google-vs-t-rex/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Google or Tyrannosaurus rex?

**Which came first, Google or Tyrannosaurus rex?: Tyrannosaurus rex**

68 million years ago — 68.002 million years before Google

Tyrannosaurus rex came first, by 68.002 million years. T. rex lived in the last two million years of the age of dinosaurs.

## Side by side

|  | Google | Tyrannosaurus rex |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1998 | 68 million years ago |
| Date | 1998-09-04 | — |
| Category | technology | nature |
| What happened | Google Inc. was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park. | T. rex lived in the last two million years of the age of dinosaurs. |

## Google

The date used here is the incorporation, 4 September 1998. Two others compete: the research project called BackRub began at Stanford in 1996, and the google.com domain was registered on 15 September 1997. Google itself has celebrated its birthday on four different September dates over the years, which is a fair indication that no single one is correct. It is younger than Amazon, eBay and Netflix.

## Tyrannosaurus rex

Tyrannosaurus rex lived from about 68 to 66 million years ago, right at the end of the Cretaceous. Stegosaurus died out around 150 million years ago. That means T. rex is closer in time to us — 66 million years — than it is to Stegosaurus, by more than 20 million years. The two are routinely drawn in the same picture and never met.

> Deep-time date, approximate to within a million years or so.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Google or Tyrannosaurus rex?

Tyrannosaurus rex, by 68.002 million years — 68 million years ago against 1998.

### When did Google start?

1998. Google Inc. was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park.

### When did Tyrannosaurus rex start?

68 million years ago. T. rex lived in the last two million years of the age of dinosaurs.

## Related pages

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## Sources

- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)