June 28 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the book that started it all! Can you believe it’s been 15 years already? Where were you when you first read The Lightning Thief? Are you a recent convert or an original Percy fan ? Either way, we hope Percy Jackson and the Olympians and all of Rick’s other books have provided as much pleasure for you as they have for us.

Just to put things in perspective, we pulled together 15 fun facts about the first year of The Lightning Thief.

1. There was barely a Facebook. (available mainly at select universities)
2. Billie Eilish was 3 years old. (born 11/18/2001)
3. Barack Obama was just beginning in the U.S. Senate. (sworn in January 3, 2005)
4. There was barely a YouTube. (launched Valentine’s Day 2005)
5. Lin Manuel-Miranda was still working on In The Heights. (first tryout performances 2005, Off-Broadway 2007)
6. Netflix meant DVD rentals-by-mail. (streaming debuted February 2007)
7. There were no iPhones or Kindles. (first generation, 2007)
8. Tesla was still looking for venture capital. (Roadster debuted February 2008)
9. There were no iPads. (first generation 2010)
10. There was no Instagram. (first post, 2010)
11. There was certainly no film adaptation. (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, opened 2010)
12. There were only 5 Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture. (up to 10 nominated beginning 2011)
13. There was no Tinder. (launched 2012)
14. There was no TikTok. (launched December 2016)
15. There was absolutely no musical adaptation. (The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical full-length opened Off-Broadway 2017, on Broadway 2019)
16. (We couldn’t resist an extra) There was definitely no Read Riordan!! (first post September 18, 2017)

Happy anniversary Uncle Rick! Thank you for dreaming up such a magnificent demigod!