April 1, 2004

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See also: March 31, 2004 - April 2004 - April 2, 2004

George W. Bush signs the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, commonly known as Laci and Conner's Law, that states that an act of violence that leads to the death of a pregnant mother and her child can be counted as two offenses. (White House) (UPI)
Faroese Prime Minister's Office announces that from then on the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office would use a new version of the Faroese Coat of Arms. The colours were inspired from the Merkið (flag) and yellow/gold was added. The new Coat of Arms depicts a Ram on a blue shield ready to defend. It can be used by the Government Ministries and by Faroese embassies, but some still use older versions of the Coat of Arms.
The Turkish Interior Ministry states forty-one members of terrorist organization, Revolutionary People's Liberation Party (DHKP-C), are detained in synchronous operations in Turkey, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. (Xinhua)
Following a gun battle, in which Palestinians hiding in a World Health Organization psychiatric hospital, in Bethlehem, opened fire on Israeli troops outside who came to arrest them, 12 of the Palestinians, mostly known militants from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades that make up part of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, are arrested. (Reuters) (BBC)
Astronomers estimate that Earth-like planets may orbit as many as one in twenty stars. (Webindia123) (BBC)
Paul Bremer pledges justice for the contractors killed and mutilated in an attack in Falluja. (BBC)
British Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes resigns over visa irregularities. (BBC)
Palestinian General Haj Ismail Jabber is discovered to have been claiming the payroll for 37,000 members of the Palestinian Authority's National Security force when only 30,000 members exist. The difference of $2 million is kept by General Jabber each month. (HaAretz)
Same-sex marriage in Canada: Michael Hendricks and René Leboeuf become the first same-sex couple to legally wed in Quebec. (CBC)
Neil H. Shubin of the University of Chicago reports in the Journal Nature the discovery of a 365-million-year-old forelimb in Pennsylvania, representing the evolution of fish to land-dwelling animals. (Scientific American)

Voting begins in South Korean parliamentary elections.

[edit] April Fools hoaxes perpetrated in 2004

April 1, 2004 was an April Fool's Day that fell on a Thursday. Hoaxes for this year included:

In a tradition dating back to at least 1978 (RFC 748), the IETF issues RFC 3751, Omniscience Protocol Requirements, written by Scott Bradner, the Secretary and VP of Standards for the Internet Society. See April 1st RFC.
The Guardian newspaper reported that Peter Mandelson was frontrunner to become the BBC's new chairman.[1]
CBBC's Newsround website claims the planets of the Solar system will be renamed after characters from The Lord of the Rings - Earth will be named Gandalf. [2]
Both The Independent [3] and The Today Programme [4] claimed Brian Eno had crafted an electronic remix of the theme tune of the radio soap opera The Archers to replace the theme that had been used for over 50 years.
An advert by BMW claimed new 'SHEF technology' would allow car drivers to cook their evening meals whilst driving home.[5]
The Sun reported that British Police were fitting hawks with speed cameras to catch lawbreaking motorists.[6]
The Daily Mail included photographs purporting to be the Queen gambling on horse racing amongst her subjects at a local Bookmaker.[7]
Google announced to start interviewing candidates for their new lunar hosting and research center. An email to the address listed returns an autoreply.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation announced that it was merging with the United States Department of Justice, with Attorney General John Ashcroft taking a new job in the office supplies department. They also announced that the recently retired MPAA head Jack Valenti would be joining their board of directors.
Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft would be adding Two-Headed Ogres as a playable race [8]. Also, they announced the addition of a new neutral hero for Warcraft III: the Goblin Tinker [9]. Meanwhile Mythic Entertainment, makers of Dark Age of Camelot announced a new expansion with a new player race of tiny tiny Spriggans [10].
Freshmeat partners with Babel Fish to enable (very poor) translations into over 52 languages [11]. The front page was also translated using the rot13 cipher.
The Toronto Star reports that joggers in the city are upset at a new speed limit of 10 km/h in city parks; the limit is to reduce noise disruption during the sensitive mating season of the local black squirrel population. [12]
The Campus Security Department at Queen's University offered employment to students and staff for extra security needed during the filming of "Spiderman 2". Includes some Photoshopped photos of the actors near well known University buildings.
The neopaganism Internet forum WiccaUK was informed that spaghetti was invented by witches in the Middle Ages.[13]
National Public Radio's news program All Things Considered announces that the United States Postal Service, as part of its "Go Postal" program, is launching a "National Portable Zip Codes Program," which will allow individuals to keep their old zip codes if they move within the United States. [14]
Howard Stern's daily radio program was introduced by Tom Chiusano, the general manager of WXRK (which hosts the program), announcing that Viacom was pulling the plug on the show because of "the weight of the government pressure and its effects on our corporation." During the next hour, a mock replacement show with two different DJs ensued, and listeners from across the country called to complain. [15]
The Motley Fool investment site announced that Hormel Foods Corporation planned to sue the United States government over the CAN-SPAM anti-spam law. [16]
Pro Wrestling Torch reports Vince McMahon will form a women's ice hockey league with some unusual rules. [17]
Today a Singapore newspaper reported that a billboard outside the Singapore History Museum was vandalized with the phrase "Casino Coming Here". Singapore has very strict laws forbidding vandalism.
The owner of DeadJournal announced, as an April Fools joke, that LiveJournal would be taking over operation of his site. [18]
Australian Broadband Community website Whirlpool announced that Telstra was going to "kill off" its cable service in favour of its ADSL service. [19]
DVD news website, dvdfile.com, reported that the entire General Hospital soap opera would be released on June 22, boasting a 55 disc set of all 252 episodes from the 38th season.
Open source firewall SmoothWall announced that it had been bought by Microsoft, prompting a large number of concerned and worried posts on the SmoothWall Community Forums
The Homestar Runner website claimed that it was sold to thoraxcorp.com. A generic animation of a stick figure shoveling dirt was displayed, along with some fake and unrealistic advertisements. If users waited a while, Homestar Runner character Stinkoman jumped up and asked the stick figure, who he dubbed "Sticklyman," if he was asking for a challenge. Additionally, Thorax Corporation is a fake company created by The Brothers Chaps, creators of Homestar Runner.
OverClocked ReMix featured a poorly-made Final Fantasy medley rearrangement submitted by Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. Later in the day, the ReMix is attributed to Chrono Trigger composer Yasunori Mitsuda.
Set [20], a Brazilian film magazine, said that Industrial Light and Magic was burned and Star Wars Episode III was delayed to 2007, and also that Johnny Knoxville was chosen for Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones 4. (the pages were only deleted Saturday, April 3)
Suprnova.org announced that, owing to a huge surge in Japanese traffic, the site would slowly transition to Japanese, and discontinue its English-language version.
WrestleCrap inducted Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero into their "Hall of Shame" with fake biographies.
The Hawaii radio station KCCN jested on air that American Idol would implement a new policy, where unlike previous weeks, only one vote from each from Hawaii household would count in the call-in tally. This resulted in an allegation that idol contestant Camile Velasco was sighted votes in favor of Jasmine Trias because some voters thought this was a real policy. (According to Verizon's records, calls from Hawaii to "American Idol" numbers increased to 1.43 million from just less than 927,000 the previous week. How this impacted both contestants is open for debate.)
GSN switched hosts on their original programming(Grahm Elwood hosted Whammy!,Kennedy hosted WinTuition,Marc Summers hosted Cram,Mark L. Wahlburg hosted Friend or Foe,and Todd Newton hosted Russian Roulette)
94.3 FM, a country music radio station in Poughkeepsie, New York aired a segment that stated that April 1st, 2004 was really March 32 because of a thing in the calendar. This included a (correct) history of the calendar, starting with the Julain Calendar, then the Gregorian Calendar. It also mentioned how we only have leap years in years divisible by 100 if they are also divisible by 400. (i.e. 2000 but not 1900). Then, itm mentioned (probably truthfully) how in years divisible by 10,000 there is no leap year. Then, it said (and this is the prank) that the calendar was still slightly off, so 4 years after a millennial year, there was 1 more day in March. They even added a nice poem, starting with "Thirty days has September..." then they ended it with "But in every Millenal year plus 4, March has one day more"

Genuine events that had been interpreted as April Fools included:

The National Archives (UK) revealed that during the Cold War, there were British plans to use chickens to regulate the temperature in a nuclear bomb.[21]
The Guardian revealed that the 1954 World Cup-winning Germany team may have been given performance-enhancing injections.[22]
The Associated Press reported that Google would launch an e-mail service with 1 GB of storage for each user. [23]
The Register [24], Web Hosting Industry News [25] and Slashdot [26] report that Ideaflood, Inc. has filed a patent on the idea of user subdomains and is now attempting to collect royalties from various websites.