Britney Spears turns 30: A timeline of the singer's life in video

Britney Spears turns 30 today. Which means the singer can finally close the book on her 20s -- that turbulent decade that saw her start as one of the biggest pop stars in the world, then hurtle through a nightmare progression of breakdowns, marriages, divorces, hospitalizations, a disastrous MTV VMA performance, a head-shaving incident and the loss of custody of her children.

What has happened to Spears over the course of the last decade is enough to fill a book the size of a Dickens novel. Unless you've been a regular reader of the gossip sites, you may have missed some of the twists and turns.

But for the time-challenged, here's a brief recap of Spears' career in three videos.