Hacker News had its sixth birthday yesterday.  You can read the original announcement from February 20, 2007 at ycombinator.com.  Also check out the traffic history going all the way back.

Hacker News began as “Startup News” after YC had funded “about a hundred people”.  At that point, “it didn’t work well anymore to send links around by email.”  Hacker News was also started because there was nothing else like it and to test the first “reasonably efficient implementation of Arc“.  The most important goal, however, was to create a community where “founders and would-be founders can meet and talk.”  The rename to Hacker News happened about six months after the site launched as the focus changed “from news about startups to news interesting to hackers generally.”

Happy Birthday, Hacker News!