Osama Bin Laden's Death Takes Facebook and Twitter by Storm

The reverberations of what happened in a well-fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, as a few dozen NAVY Seals put an end to the most wanted man in the world could be felt across the social media landscape on Monday.

Osama bin Laden's death ignited the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, social networks that have become the new-fangled water cooler in the 21st century.

Keith Urbahn, the chief of staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was one of the first reputable sources to get the word out about the Al Qaeda leader's death.

"So I'm told by a reputable person that they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn," he tweeted.

An hour later, the official White House Twitter account confirmed the news as President Barack Obama was making his remarks.

But it was six hours before anyone had any idea about the death of bin Laden that Sohaib Athar in Abbottabad was unknowingly live-tweeting what was happening.

"Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1 a.m. (is a rare event)," he tweeted.

Later, when everything had come to light, Athar tweeted his realization.

"Uh, oh, now I'm the guy who live-blogged the Osama raid without knowing it," he wrote.

On Facebook, Vadim Lavrusik, a young journalist with a focus on social media who recently left social media news site Mashable to become the journalist program manager for Facebook, talked about where he heard the news first.

"I found out Osama bin Laden is dead on Facebook. Not TV, not a news site, and not a newspaper," he wrote in a post on his page.

After the president spoke and the news spread, people took to social media to talk about how they had heard the news.

"Finding out at work while wearing my military uniform was the best feeling," said Natalie Sheryl of the Air National Guard on the Fox News Latino Facebook page. "Over the years you wonder if your sacrifice of being away from family and deploying to difficult places is going to reap the ultimate reward of making the world a better and safer place, and last night everything was validated."

"We go to war to fight in the name for our families and the generations to come so that people like Osama bin Laden can't terrorize them," she added. "No one should have to live in fear. Killing Osama is one of the most symbolic victories the U.S. has had."

Along with readers who wrote that they first learned of the news on Facebook and Twitter, some were reminded of the events of 9/11 as well, like Angela Christino Marcantonini, who said she was watching the Philadelphia Phillies against the New York Mets game when she heard the news.

"It brings back a flood of memories and hopefully a small measure of justice for every family [affected] by the horrific events of September 11th, 2001," she wrote on the Facebook page.

According to Twitter, the real-time microblog saw a deluge of tweets during the president's speech.

"Twitter reached more than 4,000 tweets per second tonight at the beginning and end of President Obama," @TwitterGlobalPR tweeted.

And along with the serious messages and reflection came, of course, the celebration over the death of one of the most hated men in the world. Some of the rejoicing quickly turned to humor.

Someone launched an account named @GhostOsama. The first tweet from the account read, "Well this sucks...I accidentally enabled location on my tweets."

The account had more than 38,000 followers as of 3 p.m. on Monday.

And that paled in comparison to a Facebook page that caught fire since the news broke.

The "And that's how the USA outdoes a Royal Wedding" page had more than 336,000 fans as of 3.p.m. as well.

Another page was much less popular but featured a photo that went viral and was making the rounds on all social media platforms.

The page featured a sunglasses-wearing President Obama, his tie swaying in the wind, and a caption that read: "Sorry it took so long to get you a copy of my birth certificate, I was too busy killing Osama Bin Laden."

All jokes aside, it was clear that the death of bin Laden affected many people and became the topic du jour on Monday. With reminders of 9/11 fresh on their minds, many echoed a call by the president during his speech and posted on Twitter from the White House account.

"Obama: 'Tonight, let us think back to the same sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11…this…is a testament to the greatness of our country.'"

Contact Adrian Carrasquillo at Adrian.Carrasquillo@foxnewslatino.com or on Twitter @RealAdrianC.