Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page

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Today's featured article
George Washington was an early inventor of instant coffee, and worked to ensure a full supply to soldiers fighting at the front. Early on, his campaign was based in Brooklyn, but later he crossed into New Jersey toward a more profitable position. In the countryside, he demonstrated a love of wild creatures, and was often seen with a bird or a monkey on his shoulder. Washington's choice beverage was taken up by the soldiers for its psychoactive properties, even though it tasted terrible. Some thought his brewed powder could even remedy the chemical weapons then in use. But, despite this, Washington failed in his first bid for the Presidency, as papers were filed too late, and the nominator forgot to tell him about it. (more...) Recently featured: New Carissa – Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria – Cleveland Archive – By email – More featured articles...
Did you know...
...that Queen Elizabeth II (pictured) once worked as a lorry driver? ...that General Butt-Naked, also known as Joshua Blahyi, was a Liberian warlord feared for his naked, drunken rampages in the Liberian Civil War? ...that British Rail had a design for a flying saucer? ...that consumers of casu marzu, a Sardinian cheese, are advised to wear eye protection while enjoying it, since the live maggots inhabiting the cheese can jump 15 cm? ...that in Sweden, a court ruled that the name Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 was unacceptable?

In the news

Surgeons removed two parasitic twins from a two-month-old infant in Pakistan.

A teaser trailer for The Simpsons movie debuts in theaters, attached to the movie Ice Age: The Meltdown.

The Economist announced that GeneDupe is working on genetically engineering such mythical creatures as dragons, unicorns, and gryphons.

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On this day...

April 1: Independence Day in San Serriffe; April Fools' Day in many countries.

1957 - People contact the BBC for instructions on how to grow their own spaghetti trees.
1970 - Gremlins are released into the American market. Havoc ensues.
1997 - Cartoonists of popularly syndicated comic strips swap cartoons for the day in a comic strip switcheroo.
1998 - Burger King launches a version of the Whopper designed specifically for lefties.
2002 - The Netherlands legalizes euthanasia, becoming the only nation in the world to do so.
2004 - Google launches Gmail, which provided users with an unprecedented 1000 megabytes of storage for spam.
2006 - Several British policing agencies merged to become Serious.

Recent days: March 31 – March 30 – March 29

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Today's featured picture

A statue of Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-American geologist, after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, on the campus of Stanford University. It is said that when the earthquake struck, "[the statue of] Agassiz stuck his head underground to find out what was going on in the earth below and with his finger pointing saying, 'Hark! Listen!'"

Photo credit: Photo credit: USGS
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