CHRONOLOGY: Key Microsoft facts and dates

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp shocked Wall Street on Thursday with its poor second-quarter results, and said it would cut as many as 5,000 jobs as it struggles to balance growth and costs amid the worsening economic downturn.

The following are some key facts about Microsoft:

* 1968: An article in Popular Electronics magazine about the first personal computer inspires eighth-grader William "Bill" Gates and schoolmate Paul Allen to develop a version of Basic, the PC programing language.

* 1973: Gates goes to Harvard University, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft's chief executive officer.

* 1975: 19-year-old Gates drops out of Harvard and co-founds Microsoft with Allen.

* 1980: International Business Machines Corp chooses Microsoft to write the operating system for the IBM personal computer, introduced in 1981.

* 1985: Microsoft launches Windows 1.0, the first version of the popular operating system.

* 1986: Microsoft goes public on March 13 at $21 per share. It also moves to its corporate campus in Redmond, Washington.

* 1989: Microsoft introduces the earliest version of its Office software.

* 1997: Microsoft acquires Hotmail, a free Web-based e-mail service co-founded by Sabeer Bhatia.

* 1999-2000: Microsoft increases its headcount from 31,575 people at the end of the 1999 fiscal year to more than 39,000 in 2000.

* 2000: Steve Ballmer names chief executive of Microsoft.

* 2001: Microsoft enters the gaming market in November with the North American release of the Xbox, competing with Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii and Sony Corp'ss PlayStation. It launches Windows XP.

* 2001-2002: Microsoft posts two consecutive years of profit declines in the aftermath of the tech bubble burst. It hires only about 2,600 people during this period.

* 2003: The company starts paying dividends in January.

* 2004: Microsoft plans to return up to $75 billion to shareholders in dividends and stock buybacks.

* 2006: Gates says he will move out of a day-to-day role in the company in July 2008.

* 2006: Microsoft launches Zune portable music player in November in a market dominated by Apple Inc's iPod.

* 2007: Launches Windows Vista, the latest version of its operating system in January.

* 2007: Acquires aQuantive for $6 billion at a time when the online advertising industry was rapidly consolidating.

* 2007-2008: In the 12 months between its 2007 and 2008 fiscal years, Microsoft hires nearly 13,000 people, taking its worldwide headcount from 78,565 to 91,259.

* 2008: Microsoft bids $44.6 billion for Yahoo, which it later sweetens to $47.5 billion before withdrawing it.

* Jan 22, 2009: Microsoft announces job cuts that are expected to reduce fiscal year 2009 capital expenditures by $700 million.

(Sources: Microsoft Web site; MSN Encarta; Reuters stories)

(Reporting by Anupreeta Das; Editing by Derek Caney)