Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday, saying the U.S. government is "committed to helping promote Internet freedom." While she didn't directly endorse Google's decision to potentially shut down its China-based operations, Clinton did say that censorship "should not be in any way accepted by any company anywhere." She also called upon China to fully investigate the cyberattacks that led to Google's stance.

This whole Google-China debacle has snowballed faster than you can say "." (Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it.) The truth, though, is that Google's beef with China dates back nearly a decade -- and these recent turns are really just the straws that broke the Google's back.

Here's a guide to the peaks and valleys that paved the way to the standoff we're seeing now.

Google and China: The Beginnings

• September 2000: Google introduces a Chinese version of its search engine at the Google.com domain.