Earlier this week, CNBC asked me to come on the air to discuss Facebook's legal woes. Click to viewI've spent days immersed in legal filings, and the clip, above, just scratches the surface of what I've learned. Next week comes a critical moment for Facebook, the red-hot social network that has captured Silicon Valley's imagination, and its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. After the jump, I explain why Zuckerberg will face a moment of reckoning next Wednesday, July 25, and detail a timeline of Facebook's legal battles.

In November 2003, as a student at Harvard University, Zuckerberg fell in with three classmates who were working on a new idea: ConnectU, a set of interlinked social networks for people at a single college. Zuckerberg did some work for them, but then launched his own website — what's now known as Facebook. The result: A lawsuit that just won't end. Next Wednesday, in a Boston courtroom, Zuckerberg's lawyers have their best shot at making it go away for good, at a hearing on a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Legal experts say that Zuckerberg's best shot is to get the suit dismissed on a technicality, by making a claim that the statute of limitations ran out on his opponents' charges on February 4, 2007, three years after Zuckerberg first launched Facebook.

That's a tough one, but more likely than the alternative, which is getting it dismissed on the substance of the case. One lawyer described ConnectU's charges as "squishy," which sounds bad — but in a hearing on a motion to dismiss, squishy is actually a good thing. If there's any doubt on whether a claim is valid, in such a hearing, the judge's inclination will be to let it go forward to trial. And a trial, with all its uncertainty, is the last thing Zuckerberg needs, with his stated plans to keep Facebook independent and apparent goal to pursue an IPO.

It all comes down to timing, then. With that, here's how Zuckerberg got into this legal spot. Anything missing? Let me know in the comments, and I'll update it.

December 2002: Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra conceive of a college social network and hire Sanjay Mavinkurve to work on what later becomes ConnectU

May 2003: Mavinkurve graduates from Harvard, with the site still unfinished; Victor Gao, another Harvard student, later picks up work on the site

November 2003: After Gao leaves the project, ConnectU's founders hire Mark Zuckerberg to work on Harvard Connection, a website that later became ConnectU

January 11, 2004: While still promising to finish Harvard Connection, Zuckerberg registers the domain for thefacebook.com, a fact that the ConnectU founders allege that didn't disclose in a meeting three days later

February 4, 2004: Zuckerberg launches thefacebook.com

April 2004: Facebook expands to other colleges

April 13, 2004: Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskowitz, and Eduardo Saverin form Thefacebook.com LLC, a partnership (despite this, Saverin is not credited today as a founder by the company)

Spring 2004: ConnectU hires a Web-development firm, iMarc

May 2004: Cameron Winklevoss allegedly emails his father detailing a plan to steal email addresses from Facebook's website

May 2004: Having appealed to Harvard administrators, without success, to rule that Zuckerberg violated the school's honor code, ConnectU's founders appeal to Harvard president Larry Summers, who also rebuffs them

May 21, 2004: ConnectU launches its first website, Harvard Connection

June 11, 2004: ConnectU's founders allegedly ask iMarc to write a script that automatically logs into the Facebook website and harvests users' email addresses; iMarc refuses

July 22, 2004: ConnectU's founders allegedly send thousands of emails to Facebook users inviting them to join ConnectU

September 2, 2004: ConnectU files a lawsuit against Zuckerberg and other Facebook founders

February 2005: Facebook blocks ConnectU's alleged continued attempts to harvest emails from its website

May 26, 2005: Accel Partners invests $13 million in Facebook

August 23, 2005: Facebook, at bad-boy entrepreneur Sean Parker's instigation, buys the facebook.com domain name for $200,000

October 14, 2005: Facebook's founders file a motion to dismiss ConnectU's lawsuit

September 11, 2006: Facebook allows any user with an email address to join the site, and its user base begins to grow explosively

March 9, 2007: Facebook files a countersuit against ConnectU, charging it, among other things, with violating antispam laws

March 28, 2007: A court dismisses ConnectU's original lawsuit, without prejudice, allowing ConnectU to immediately file a new lawsuit against Facebook's founders as well as the company itself

June 23, 2007: Court grants a hearing on a motion to dismiss ConnectU's lawsuit against Facebook, scheduled for July 25