FACTBOX-Facts about Yahoo Corp

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) offered to buy Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) for $44.6 billion (23 billion pounds) in cash and stock, seeking to join forces against Google Inc (GOOG.O) in what would be the biggest Internet deal since the Time Warner-AOL merger.

Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $31 per share, a 62 percent premium over Yahoo's previous closing stock price.

The following are some key facts about Yahoo:

* 1994: David Filo and Jerry Yang, Doctoral candidates in electrical engineering at Stanford University, found Yahoo in a campus trailer in February as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. The site starts out as "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web".

* The name is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but Filo and Yang insist they selected the name because they liked the general definition of a yahoo -- rude, unsophisticated and uncouth.

* 1994: Yahoo celebrated its first million-hit day that fall, translating to almost 100 thousand unique visitors.

* 1995: In March, Filo and Yang incorporate the business and meet with dozens of Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Sequoia Capital, whose most successful investments included Apple Computer, Atari, Oracle and Cisco Systems, agreed to fund Yahoo in April with an initial investment of nearly $2 million.

* 1995: Company secures second round of funding in the fall from investors Reuters Ltd. and Softbank. Launches a highly successful IPO in April 1996 with a total of 49 employees.

* 2001: Laid low by the tech crash, Yahoo in May brought in Terry Semel, a Hollywood deal-maker, when the company was at its nadir. Yahoo rebounded under his leadership, but 2006 -- a year expected by many to be Yahoo's best -- turned out dismally. The company's brand-advertising growth fell and Yahoo lost share of search-related advertising to Google.