April 1, 2005

See also March 31, 2005 - April 2005 - April 2, 2005

Actual news

• Hamas and Islamic Jihad have declared, in principle, their intention to join the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). (Al Ahram)
• A death squad guns down at least 30 people in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. Several teenagers and a child were among those killed in the districts of Queimados and Nova Iguacu on Thursday night. Authorities blame rogue police officers for the massacre. (BBC) (Wikinews)
• Google doubles the storage space of its Gmail service to two gigabytes. (internetnews.com)
• Pope John Paul II is on the verge of death as a result of his recent health problems. The Vatican announces that the pope has suffered cardiovascular collapse and septic shock. (CNN) The Vatican denies "unsourced" media reports claiming he has already died. (Reuters)
• The United Nations Security Council votes to refer those suspected of war crimes in Darfur to the International Criminal Court. (Sudan Tribune) (Reuters AlertNet) (BBC)
• Zimbabwe parliamentary elections, 2005: In Zimbabwe, the ruling Zanu-PF gains a two-thirds majority over opposition party Movement for Democratic Change amidst claims of dis-enfranchisement and fraud. (News24) (Bloomberg) (BBC)
• Indian security forces launch an offensive against the United Liberation Front of Assam. (BBC)
• The World Bank agrees to fund a controversial hydroelectric dam project in Laos. (Planet Ark) (BBC)
• The Minuteman Project starts a month-long patrolling of the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona for illegal immigrants, with about 100 volunteers, some of them armed. (ABC News)
• The government of Argentina delays the restructuring of its debt by the exchange of old bonds for new because of a decision by a federal court judge in the United States that froze the processing of the old bonds in the possession of the Bank of New York pending a hearing before the appeals court. (Financial Times)

Hoaxes

On the internet

• AppleTalk announces that Apple has released an iPod Phone and a worldwide VoIP network called AppleTalk and that they are being forced to change their name...
• MozillaNews reports that Google will be acquiring the Mozilla Foundation, as a whole.
• Google launches an April Fool's Search (although this is not in fact run by the real Google), and also announces a new line of soft drinks called Google Gulp Beta with Auto-Drink(tm)
• Subsim.com clones a CNN report claiming Bush takes on the terrorists in his leisure time with computer game
• The Skeptic's Dictionary front page shows an announcement that the author has given up scientific inquiry and skepticism in place of the pursuit of Veritas.
• Discovery of "extinct" butterfly
• Locus Magazine makes announcements about Charles Stross, new anthologies, and a lethal flamewar.
• The Quakecon website was taken over by rabid imps, killing all the staff and sparking panic in Dallas, Texas. View the carnage here.
• Utopios makes first public release while changing policy by licensing popular Free software and becoming a proprietary OS.
• Mr. Skin featured "Bea Arthur Baring All" and announced a change from all-female to all-male content. Main Page Landing Page Ask Mr. Skin (Warning: some adult content)
• Microsoft to Release Visual Studio 2005 for Unix/Linux (TheServerSide.Net)
• The Tiger Pep Band at DePauw University changed their website design to appear as the Wabash Pep Band from arch-rival school Wabash College. The feature news article described that DePauw was being absorbed into a new "Wabash University" and that the Tiger Pep Band -- soon to celebrate its tenth anniversary -- would become a second-tier ensemble within the Wabash Bands department.
• MSN launches a new site producing spoofed search results for April fools day, MSNSearchSpoof. (This isn't actually a hoax, just an aid to create a hoax.)
• AskJeeves debuts the Jeeves9000
• Mobile Gazette reports that European cellphone standards will be needlessly harmonised.
• Booble.com has become Biible.com, an anti-sex site.
• Star Trek had several hoaxes on their website StarTrek.com including a bogus "Potucker" episode ad, funny clips, and various other articles throughout the home page.
• SpaceDaily reports that President Bush has cancelled the Space Shuttle Program and EADS SPACE falls for it.
• BDgamer.net posts news about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas PC version leaked all over the net.
• Creative Bits [1] Announces that the rumors were true and Microsoft has purchased the site. This popular Mac Photoshop resource would now be featuring articles on MS Windows and providing Photoshop Tutorials from the Windows version. "Sounds cool? We thought so!"
• Wikipedia announces that its parent organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation has been taken over by the Encyclopædia Britannica. Numerous other pranks ensue on the site.
• GamesBids announces that IOC Could Involve Public In Future Olympic Bid Decisions
• PlanetKDE and PlanetGNOME switched places. GNOME announce a new feature where users are forced to donate to GNOME to use their desktop.
• New RFCs:
  • RFC 4041, Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts (A. Farrel)
  • RFC 4042, UTF-9 and UTF-18 -- Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode (M. Crispin)
• New IETF Working Group: pride, PRactically IDEal Working Group
• Microsoft to put P2P software .GET into next version of Windows
• Gentoo to drop x86 LiveCDs
• Nature.com reports that bacteria from the Apollo missions is destroying the moon.
• The DARPA Grand Challenge 2006 to take place in Athens, Greece
• NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" featuring a picture of "Water on Mars"
• Ubuntu Linux users who ran an apt update had their normal gdm login screen replaced with a picture of three people, including Mark Shuttleworth, replicating the original picture.
• Dropline GNOME announced SlackLine, a new SRPM based Slackware distribution with 1000 GNOME packages .
• Dr. Mario to be banned from further Nintendo products after parents' complaints about his association to a drug dealer. Local Toronto physician Dr Pablo N. Mario is outraged and sues Nintendo.
• Sonic CulT announces a merger with Sonic Classic, a site with whom they have had a long-standing hatred of.
• Opera Software announced Opera SoundWave, a "platform-independent speech solution for short- and medium-range interpersonal communication".
• GMTV reported on "Fruitshakes", milkshakes produced by feeding cows fruit.
• Locus Online carried a fake news story announcing that 12 members of SFWA had been killed in a flamewar.
• LiveJournal's Brad Fitzpatrick announced his departure and new corporate policies, including the introduction of banner ads. LiveJournal's web client's "Update Journal" button bounces when moused over, switches with "Check Spelling", and when finally clicked changes text to "Processing Whining".
• OverClocked ReMix states that is taken over by Electronic Arts. Later that day, OC ReMix received a letter from representatives of EA threatening legal action for the hoax. Later still, the legal threat turned out to be a second hoax. The site has since been changed back to its original layout.
• Homestar Runner displayed a hoax message purporting that the popular (and free) animation website would begin charging money for access. A comically mediocre "tour" of pay-site features was also presented.
• Ambrosia Software invited its mailing list subscribers to visit their site and download "Screen Cleaner Pro!," a hoax application which seems to brighten the user's computer monitor with an animated graphic of a cloth being dragged across the screen- the effect is achieved by gradually darkening the monitor before executing the animation.
• IGN carries Microsoft's announcement of World of Wordcraft
• BeyondUnreal announces Epic Games' latest project: Unreal 3: Slug Saga - The Adventures of Ne'Ban
• ThinkGeek listed a number of strange and unique items for sale, including a USB Desktop Fondue Set, iCopulate, and XBOX 2.
• Duck Hunt coming to Nintendo DS with special edition stylus! [2]
• Fark.com had several different pages rotating as index.html, including fake hacker attacks, and a control panel that appeared to log visitors in as Fark's owner Drew Curtis. ([3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11])
• Scientific American "gives up" on science and vows to give equal acknowledgement to Creationist theories. (full article on Slashdot)
• Planetcricket.net reported that Swordfish Studios had announced a new game officially licensed by New Zealand cricket & rugby union international Jeff Wilson called Jeff Wilsons International Rugby versus Cricket 2005. Features included playing cricket with a rugby ball and rugby with cricket bats. (full article)
• GeNToo: Gentoo Linux on the NT kernel. Screenshots to confirm this: http://gentooexperimental.org/nt/gentoo-nt-screenshots.html
• Several comic strip cartoonists make Ouija Board jokes at the same day, with roughly the same dialogue. Strips involved include FoxTrot, Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine.
• Tibia is supposedly searching for players to coordinate game events. They would get a special character with power to summon monsters and create items, and "of course" they would be paid for the job. [12]
• 2600 requires meeting attendees to wear formal attire.
• Blizzard Entertainment announces the Pandaren Xpress, a service in World of Warcraft that allows you to order Chinese Food by typing /panda! (A parody of similar service from Everquest 2)
  • Also in World of Warcraft, Blizzard announce that they are to scrap the currently planned Battlegrounds system in favour of an in-game playable version of Warcraft III.
  • In addition, the avatars on the US forum were all changed to Murlocs, and the Murloc attack sound from the game was played in the background.
• Everything2 bought out by Google; the new owners rebrand it Google Communities
• The Code Project is now concentrating on VB6 development
• The Sonic Stadium releases a fake card battling game at 4pm that fails when trying to start a game, and keeps members in suspense for three hours claiming to be fixing the program. The final error message at 8pm had a category of "April Fool".
• IPodLinux gives up and becomes iPodXP, iPod firmware based on Windows XP. Screen shots: [13] [14]
• Microsoft announces SQL Server for Linux, Unix, and Xbox. (Weblink)
• Deathfall.com posts an interview with filmmaker George Lucas announcing the death of Jar Jar Binks.
• The VGCats website was replaced with an eBay auction for Ms. Pac-Man's slightly soiled bow tie.
• mIRC.net reported on an mIRC 6.2 Preview
• The EFF sends an issue of the "EFFector" (the "10,001st" issue, Vol. 18, No. 11.a) to their mailing list with several humorous falsifications of current events.
• Peter Jackson's King Kong video production diary announces the upcoming Son of Kong, where the son of Kong battles WWII Nazi mutant monsters.
• Googolplex Theaters, a movie theater chain that does everything in Virtual Reality.
• Sonic HQ, a Sonic the Hedgehog fansite changes his name to Shadow HQ
• Digit Online announces that the European Union has banned sales Apple Macintosh computers.
• Pokey the Penguin goes on the auction block.
• Portal Sonic, a Brazilian Sonic the Hedgehog fansite, announces that CoroCoroComics is going to release a new Sonic manga, Team Chaotix.
• Time Doctor Dot Org, a Linux gaming humor site goes down for EU patent infringement of "Funny Patents".
• Spatial Abiword Word Processor is announced.
• Gamestay.com reports Sony is introducing the DVD into PSP (DiP) ultra-thin DVD player for the PlayStation Portable.
• IGN Filmforce announces information on Star Wars episodes VII, VIII, and IX.
• The official Magic: The Gathering homepage gets premium content.
• 4chan adds a furry image board.
• The Best Page In The Universe replaced by TerriAngel's Xanga Site. [15]
• Wilson Miner and Robert Bingaman posted their photos on each others' sites. No one noticed.
• IGN add a video trailer of Grand Theft Auto 4.
• GameSpot news: EA announces Medal of Honor Street.
• Noted entertainment reporter Kristin Veitch announces that she is leaving E!. [16]
• Valve Software announces an update for the game Counter-Strike: Source via Steam
• GameSpot announces that John Woo will direct a movie based on Katamari Damacy; The Rock will star. [17]
• Gamerevolution reviews the gPod, a handheld gaming device entry by Apple.
• Mozilla announced that the new name for the Application Suite would be Allizom.
• Mess with MSN Messenger reports one of its visitors discovered an ancient rock formation in Big Bend National Park that looks suspiciously a lot like the MSN Messenger mascot Mess.be.
• BMEzine posted an article about a couple cutting off their ringfingers in the name of romance.
• Apple announces that they will release the "Gpod" handheld console this year to compete with the Sony PSP.
• BostonBusinessJournal reports that MIT will move to NCAA Division I and all financial aid will be converted to athletic scholariships (article)
• Gallery and Coppermine announce their merger
• Bungie Studios reports that they will be making unusual downloadable content for Halo 2.
• Bonus Stage made a fake update that led to Mario Average Man.
• Visual IRC announced a new version that appeared to be a merger with mIRC.
• Caravel Games announced that their game DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold was not released, while in reality it was.
• A site claming to be BBC reports "zombie" virus in Cambodia.
• CBBC's Newsround website reports that brainbands help children pass exams.
• DDR:uk reports that it has been taken over by Konami and will be presenting the new Dancing Stage Fusion game.
• ComingSoon.net reports that John Hughes is prepping a sequel to his 1986 film Pretty in Pink.
• BattleRoyaleFilm.net reports that Rachael Leigh Cook has landed the title role in an American remake of the South Korean romantic comedy film My Sassy Girl.
• Movie Tome reports that Daniel Radcliffe, Whoopi Goldberg, Lindsay Lohan, Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Boreanaz, Julianne Moore and Bruce Willis have all joined the cast of X-Men 3.
• UnCubed.com reports that a fourth sequel to the 1997 sci-fi film Cube has entered production.
• Making Fiends had the eighteenth episode in the Bulgarian language.
• Tool (band)/A Perfect Circle vocalist Maynard James Keenan claimed on the band's official website to have "found Jesus", which MTV reported, believing it to be true. Maynard And Jesus Split: The Conclusion
• Steve Jackson Games announced a Girl Genius roleplaying game, but phrased the announcement to sound like an obvious hoax, when it was in fact true.
• Tupac Shakur, probably the most notorious rapper who was shot down at Las Vegas in 1996, was said to be alive and well on the CNN website.
• WrestleCrap announced that they were going to be bought by Vince Russo and renamed Vince Russo presents WrestleCrap.
• howstuffworks.com has an article about How Hydro-Ordnance Works, simply it's about the military replacing all current arms with water firing weapons.
• Malakhim replaced its site with a fake site for the cult of Malakh.
• Metalunderground.com posted a handful of fake stories including "Hatebeak Guitarist Bites Head Off "Singer" At Show," "Lars Ulrich Makes Hostile Takeover of Beatallica," "Fred Durst's Sex Tape Scheme Unveiled," "Slipknot To Launch New Line Of Official Merch," and "ex-Static-X Guitarist Tripp Eisen Joins Korn."
• www.Hackthissite.org had a message on the front page, claiming that microsoft had bought it.

In Australia

• The Sunrise breakfast show on Channel 7 Australia broadcast a redo of the BBC's smell-o-vision April fools day joke.
• Whirlpool in Australia report that Former Senator Richard Alston will be Telstra's next CEO (original article) .
• The Sydney Morning Herald reports the new SMEGmail service, offering 1 terabyte of e-mail storage space (original article); and the recruitment of Paris Hilton to increase the exposure of Linux (original article)
• Interplanetary spam responsible for crippling the onboard computer of the Spirit rover
• Virgin Group's Australian Finance Division announced the introduction of a 'scratch and sniff' sausage credit card. Website link
• A radio station in WA, played "You Promise Me" over 10 times in a row on the radio. Saying that other songs were coming up next, they played the same song over. Listeners were tuning in and rang up, but then figured it was April the 1st!

In Canada

• In The Globe and Mail, BMW offered a free pair of "314t" cross-trainers to anyone who purchased a new 3-Series.
• The Toronto Star reports that Ashton Kutcher and Paris Hilton to star in a 2005 remake of Casablanca
• Campus Security at Queen's University in Kingston reported Hogwarts Castle was acquired by the University and reported a number of Security incidents that resulted from the influx of Hogwarts "exchange students". Features Photoshopped pictures of characters from the Harry Potter movies along with well known University landmarks.
• The Canadian site Urban Exploration Resource (UER) posted a mock up of the images posted by the MPAA when popular Bittorrent site Lokitorrent.com was shut down. Urban Exploration Resource Lokitorrent, after MPAA takeover
• Eminent Montreal ping-pong player Yank Hang bombs local gym after losing to James "Chucky" Chung in final round of play.

In Denmark

• The Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet reports that the film Indiana Jones 4, will be filmed this year in Denmark, partly in Copenhagen and partly on the island of Bornholm. [18]

In Germany

• In football, Bayern Munich announces on its website that it is set to sign Real Madrid and England superstar and cultural icon David Beckham. Weblink (in German) Weblink (in English) (Reuters/Yahoo!)

• German's biggest newspaper BILD teams up with beer brewer Veltins to create personalized fake BILD headlines.

In India

• The Times of India says Dan Brown reveals that Kashmir actually belongs to the US in his new upcoming book. [19]

In Malaysia

• Malaysian radio station Hitz.FM's Morning Crew, Rudy and JJ (famous for their Gotcha pranks), announce that they have been fired for coming in late the day before, and take hostage of the station. The drama went on for their entire morning shift. Malaysian newspaper The Malay Mail carried the story thinking that it was for real. They carried the story the day after, announcing that it was an April fool's prank.

In the Netherlands

• NOS Jeugdjournaal, Dutch Journal for Kids announced that the government wants to prohibit using MSN Messenger for children under the age of 14. Thousands of children called a special telephone number to vote against the plan, and were told it was a joke.
• A Zoo in Emmen announced the birth of a zebra whose patterning was chequered, as opposed to the conventional stripes. Readers were invited to visit the zoo.
• TweedehandsMac, a website to sell and buy 2nd hand Macs inverted all words on their website, making their new title: "caMsdanhedeewT"

In New Zealand

• Telecom New Zealand published a full-page advertisement in the New Zealand Herald publicising the reintroduction of the first-generation cellphone, the brick.
• The Otago Daily Times newspaper announced a breakthrough link between an additive in printing ink and obesity, urging its readers to soak their newspaper in water and wrap themselves in its pages to test the results for themselves.
• Campbell Live (TV3's recently launched current events programme) exposed advanced Government plans to sell much of the national park on Stewart Island/Rakiura to the United States for use as an air base supporting their operations in Antarctica.

In the United Kingdom

• BMW printed a full page ad in a number of national UK newspapers (including The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, and the Daily Mail) saying that in 2007 the EU was to ban right-handed cars being driven in mainland Europe (effectively banning every British car), and that they had invented steering wheel-less technology. The ad can be seen here.
• Mugglenet is replaced with a page stating that J.K. Rowling has taken legal action against the site, causing it to be shut down. (It also contained a fake countdown to "Harry Potter 5: The Pillar of Storgé")
• The BBC report that a think-tank has suggested that disabled people should not appear on television until after the 9pm watershed.
• Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
• The Independent: Jamie Oliver is to be the new Conservative candidate of the Arundel and South Downs after the saga of Howard Flight.
• King Arthur Pendragon claimed that English Heritage had handed ownership of Stonehenge to the Druids, as part of a project to place a roof and restore the ancient temple to its former glory [20]
• The Today programme on BBC Radio 4 reported that, as a result of an obscure 19th century rule of succession of the House of Saxe-Coburg, Camilla Parker-Bowles's son, Thomas Parker-Bowles, who is older than Prince William, will become second in line to the British throne following the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla on 8 April 2005.
• The Guardian reported that Charles, Prince of Wales had been appointed 'Countryside Tsar' by Tony Blair in the run-up to the imminent general election. The ban on foxhunting will be revoked, as long as it is made into a sport of the people.
• The Sun reported that EU bureaucrats wanted to ban April Fools' Day because of physical and mental injury caused to the victims of jokes; and that gypsies had camped in Windsor Castle, claiming a centuries-old right to pitch tents there.
• The Times Sports section claims that the Premiership is to covert into an NFL-style 32-team play-off system.

In the United States

• Jennifer Government: NationStates claims to be forbidden by the Department of Homeworld Security. [21] (also contains a reference to 1984)
• National Public Radio's news program All Things Considered reports on New England's maple syrup industry downturn and the dangers of leaving maple trees untapped. [22]
• The Manhattan College Quadrangle reports that campus food-service operator, Sodexho, has replaced food service workers with strippers.[23]
• MiceAge.com posts a spoofed article about Disney Casino Adventure, a Vegas-style makeover of the Disney California Adventure theme park at Disneyland.
• Peter Gammons announces on the Dan Patrick radio show that Pete Rose is now eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
• CollegeHumor sold to Philip Morris USA. CollegeHumor.com
• FBI Crackdown on VCR use is a ruse based on P2P legal proceedings and paranoia.
• A&W Restaurants announce new deal of "Two grandpas for five dollars".
• Santa Fe Institute [24] changed their splash page to Greek fonts.

Ouija Board Comic Strips: In 2005, the comic strips FoxTrot, Pearls Before Swine (comic strip), and Get Fuzzy all ran essentially the same gag involving a Ouija board telling one character to punch another. [25]

Events mistaken as April Fool's Day hoaxes

Genuine events that had been interpreted as April Fools included:

• Adult Swim aired an unfinished version of its newest show Squidbillies in place of the originally scheduled Robot Chicken. Later on in the morning they admitted to the fact that it was unfinished.
• Pope John Paul II's near-death condition (he died the next day)
• Christopher Eccleston quits Doctor Who (2005) after one series [26]
• Comedian Mitch Hedberg's death was announced on The Howard Stern Show and reports of a hoax quickly spread across the Internet by listeners believing it to be an April Fool's prank. Hedberg had just appeared on the show a week prior to the announcement, leading some to believe he had co-conspired with Stern. Hedberg had in fact died three days eariler on March 29.
• Frank Perdue's death
• The announcement of the tea tablet
• Zinedine Zidane playing again with the France national football team
• Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 64-Bit Versions are RTM and can be downloaded from MSDN
• British Home Secretary Charles Clarke is being asked to pardon Anne Boleyn for the crimes of adultery, incest and witchcraft for which she was beheaded in 1536. [27]
• [28] Google doubles Gmail disk space quota to 2Gb.
• [29] Google offers Ride Finder for real time information on taxi cabs in selected cities.
• [30] Fairfax County, Virginia imposes ambulance charge.
• [31] The BBC asks to interview long-deceased singer Bob Marley.
• [32] Nintendo-Reloaded was the previous name for the upcoming console, which is now called Wii.
• Best Buy to end Rebates
• One of Cartoon Network's Cartoon Cartoon series, The PowerPuff Girls was said to be in the process of being adapted to an Anime, tentatively titled "Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z" by Aniplex (Of "Full Metal Alchemist" fame) and Toei (of, besides others "Dragon Ball" fame) in part of a deal involving IGPX and one other series that has yet to be announced.
• [33] The Sev Wide Web switches to a subscription service for most of its archived comics.

See also

• April 1, 2004
• Wikinews article about the April Fool's Day edits on Wikipedia
• BBC list of ten news stories from the day which sounded like - but weren't - hoaxes

External link

• A long list of supposed 2005 April Fool's

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