Okay, how many times have you received birthday or holiday gifts in Amazon packaging? For me, it’s been a lot more than once. So it’s only fitting that I should be thinking about getting a gift for Amazon tomorrow on its 15th birthday. According to an interesting piece by The National’s Katie Boucher, the company accepted its first order on July 16, 1995:

It was an inauspicious start to something that would change the face of retailing as we knew it: on July 16, 1995, the first intrepid customer strayed on to the newly live website www.amazon.com and made a purchase. Hours, or maybe days later (these were the days of dial-up internet, don’t forget), Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought, by Douglas Hofstadter, was winging its way through the post. A new way of buying books had begun.

It took another 15 weeks or so before the company was ready to issue the press release below, on

October 4, 1995, announcing not only that it had opened its doors but that it had become the “world’s largest bookseller!” Let’s just say that the company has become a tad more understated in the intervening years, but in any case it’s fun to read that first release today.

And, by the way, if you’re stumped about what to get Amazon for its birthday, here’s Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Wish List. I’m having trouble deciding between the Krazy Glue to help Jeff make Amazon a “stickier” website and a couple of other choices. But I really like the hat, so much that I am thinking of getting myself one. And then I would absolutely have to get Jeff the hat too, because then when folks complimented him on it he could say, “Thanks, it’s the same hat that Steve Windwalker wears….”

Thanks to Abhi’s Kindle Review blog for the birthday reminder!