Facebook filed for its hotly anticipated initial public offering on Wednesday, setting the stage for Silicon Valley's largest-ever IPO.

The world's largest social network, a dorm room project for Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg that exploded in popularity and vaulted to Silicon Valley's top tier within 8 years , submitted preliminary IPO documents to the Securities Exchange Commission after weeks of frenzied speculation.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic and Edwin Chan)

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