August 25, 1991 marked the beginning of the Linux project. On this exact day, Torvalds wrote an email to a MINIX newsgroup announcing the start of his project. It reads:

Message-ID: 1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.helsinki.fi
From: torvalds@klaava.helsinki.fi (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
To: Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system

Hello everybody out there using minix-

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386 (486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-sytem due to practical reasons)among other things.

I've currently ported bash (1.08) an gcc (1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that i'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people want.

Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus Torvalds torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi

On September 17 of that year, Torvalds broke a long period of silence and concentration, releasing version 0.01 of linux.

Shortly after, in October, the first official version was released, 0.02. It provided the ability to run the bash shell, a text based terminal, and GCC, the GNU C compiler. These were both crucial to text-based operating systems at the time. 

Ari Lemmke, Torvald’s friend, encouraged him to publish his work online, so people could download it over the network. At first, Torvalds named it Linux, a combination of Linux and MINIX, but later changed its name to Freax, although it was published under the name Linux online, becoming the official name for the operating system. Linus published the Linux kernel under the GNL (GNU General Public License). This was created by a programmer named Richard Stallman that advocated for free software and operating systems. Under this license, many programs were soon made available for Linux, allowing a multitude of programs to be run on Linux. 

The performance of the Linux kernel continued to improve more and more, notably adding the faster and ahead-of-its-time ext2 filesystem. After the Kernel was made available to all computers instead of just Intel x86-based ones, the Linux Kernel skyrocketed to millions of users. The Linux kernel would then go on to be the base for Android, the most popular phone operating system.