Amid the chaos, some of the most reliable accounts—and harrowing images—were coming straight from runners and spectators.
Agree? Disagree? Tell us what you’d add to our list using hashtag #140moments
The 140 Moments That Made Twitter Matter
When users posted photos from the Boston Marathon bombing
Full List
The #Fails
- When McDonald’s encouraged people to share their #McDStories
- When a Glee extra leaked plot details
- When Gilbert Gottfried made too-soon jokes after the Japan tsunami
- When Entenmann’s had way too much fun with the Casey Anthony verdict
- When an e-retailer misinterpreted a trending topic
- When KitchenAid made a joke about Obama’s dead grandmother
- When retailers tried to capitalize on Hurricane Sandy
- When Chrysler dissed Detroit
- When Micky Arison vented about the NBA lockout
- When The Onion insulted a 9-year-old actress
- When the NRA tweeted “Good Morning, Shooters” the day after the Aurora, Colo. rampage
- When these Olympians medaled in racism
- When @Sweden’s citizen takeover went horribly wrong
- When Kenneth Cole tried to use the Arab Spring to sell shoes
- When Anthony Weiner tweeted a picture of his weiner
The #Feuds
- When T. Boone Pickens schooled Drake
- When Charmin put a comedian in his place
- When the L.A. Kings burned the New Jersey Devils
- When Trent Reznor digged at Chris Cornell
- When the MySpace founder shot back at a random critic
- When Aimee Mann sparred with Ice-T
- When Don Lemon put Jonah Hill on blast
- When Cory Booker zinged a follower
- When Zayn from One Direction took on Max from The Wanted
- When Brian Wilson swung back at John McCain
- When Donald Trump and a Modern Family staffer sparred about China
- When Kanye West railed against Jimmy Kimmel
- When Amanda Bynes went after Rihanna, Drake and the Obamas
- When Hope Solo beefed with Brandi Chastain
- When the Dallas Cowboys took a swipe at the NHL
- When AMC tussled with Oreo
- When McDonald’s fought back against the Bloomberg soda ban
- When President Obama responded to Clint Eastwood’s “empty chair” bit
- When Taco Bell burned Old Spice
The #Scoops
- When users posted photos from the Boston Marathon bombing
- When @jkrums posted a photo of the Hudson plane crash
- When @stefmara captured the Space Shuttle Endeavor launch from her plane window
- When @judecallegari reportedly outed “Robert Galbraith” as a J.K. Rowling pen name
- When the Sun Microsystems CEO announced his resignation
- When @MalikAlAbdeh “confirmed” Muammar Gaddafi’s death
- When the president of Ecuador declared a state of emergency
- When Clarence House announced the Royal Engagement
- When the president of Iran addressed freedom of information
- When @AjaDiorNavy broke news of Whitney Houston’s death
- When Sohaib Athar unknowingly live-tweeted the Bin Laden raid
The #Stunts
- When Nickelback addressed its haters directly
- When Giraldo Rivera tweeted a shirtless selfie
- When Smart Car proved that bird poop could not total one of its vehicles
- When Stephen Colbert renamed tweets “gurgles”
- When NASCAR’s Brad Keselowski live-tweeted the Daytona 500—while driving
- When Jimmy Kimmel boosted the Emmys viewership
- When James Cameron “tweeted” from the bottom of the ocean
- When Chipotle fake-hacked its own account
- When Charlie Sheen started #winning
- When a BuzzFeed employee launched @horse_ebooks
- When Shaq meet his followers in person
- When Jennifer Egan tweeted an entire original short story
- When a teenager faked her own kidnapping
- When a man spent more than $1,000 to put British Airways on blast
- When Samsung sent a man to the top of Mount Everest—to tweet from a Galaxy S2
- When Memorial Hermann Hospital live-tweeted an open-heart surgery
- When @antitheistangie live-tweeted her abortion
- When Wendy’s raised $500,000 for foster children
- When Oreo scored the most talked-about ad of Super Bowl XLVII—for free
The #Backtracks
- When the American Red Cross slyly acknowledged a wayward tweet
- When Sainsbury’s geeked out
- When Daniel Tosh quipped about his rape-joke apology
- When Rupert Murdoch apologized
- When John Mayer addressed his racist remarks
- When a Malaysian man posted 100 court-ordered apologies
- When Ashton Kutcher took a leave of absence
- When Kanye West humbled himself
The #Rants
- When 50 Cent couldn’t believe he had to take out the trash
- When Lady Gaga addressed her haters
- When Miley Cyrus threatened her dad
- When Family Feud slammed the Tea Party
- When Evan Williams ripped an early Twitter hater
- When some Americans took issue with Miss America’s race
- When Alec Baldwin got kicked off an American Airlines flight for playing Words With Friends
- When Kevin Smith was told he was too fat to fly
- When a group of ex-employees put HMV on blast
- When Kanye West announced his new company
- When T.J. Lang ripped the NFL
The #Raves
- When astronaut Chris Hadfield tweeted an adorable goodbye photo
- When Cory Booker complimented a stripper
- When Michael Dell championed entrepreneurship
- When celebrities rallied around a terminally ill teen
- When Justin Bieber memorialized a fan
- When @richarddeitsch asked users to submit photos of the best moment in their lives
- When a U.S. congressman conceded to his opponent with a compliment
- When Chad Ochocino and John Boehner started a bromance
- When Japanese users posted 143,199 tweets per second about Castle in the Sky
- When Bill Gates remembered Steve Jobs
- When President Obama celebrated his reelection
The #LOLz
- When Jaden Smith waxed philosophical
- When @FakeAPStylebook launched
- When Waffle House made a Drake joke
- When @big_ben_clock tweeted its first BONG
- When Patrick Stewart posed in front of a Picard sign
- When Tyrese thought “Pandora” was a person
- When the Nobel committee couldn’t reach certain winners via phone
- When the cast of The West Wing reunited
- When @ElBloombito launched
- When Martha Stewart expected Apple to pick up her broken iPad
- When Sen. Chuck Grassley @-replied himself
- When John McCain aligned himself with Snooki
- When the White House made a Mean Girls joke
- When NASA broke legitimate news—with a sense of humor
The #Debuts
The #GameChangers
- When Greg Rewis proposed to Stephanie Sullivan
- When @ShitMyDadSays became a TV show
- When thousands vowed to #StandWithWendy
- When Ashton Kutcher passed a million followers
- When @ComfortablySmug spread fake news about Hurricane Sandy
- When @BPGlobalPR skewered BP
- When the world embraced Japan during the tsunami
- When the White House welcomed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
- When @persiankiwi started live-tweeting the 2009 Iran election protests
- When the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the AP’s account
- When Twitter bought Vine
- When a tweet helped free @jamesbuck from an Egyptian jail
- When Israel announced an attack on Gaza
- When Ann Curry helped convince the U.S. Air Force to allow a Doctors Without Borders flight to land in Haiti
- When the Library of Congress decided to archive every tweet
- When NASA’s TJ Creamer tweeted from space
- When @rsa sent the first @-reply
- When @chrismessina used the first hashtag
- When #OccupyWallStreet was born
- When Comedy Central put a hashtag on live TV
- When Twitter announced its IPO
- When Twitter powered a revolution