On the Laravel News site there's a post announcing the official fifth birthday of Laravel, a framework that has definitely made its mark on the community in that short amount of time.

Five years ago today Taylor announced the first release of Laravel to the world. [...] Even though a lot has changed and improved since that first release the code still has that same feel. Like all newborns that first release was very minimal–no controllers, no Eloquent, no templating system. It had enough to get you started but lacked the niceties we now enjoy.

The post also lists some of the things that didn't start out in the framework but have been added since including: Blade, Collections, Eloquent, Queues and Middleware support.

Happy birthday Laravel and a big thank you to Taylor and the entire community.