April Fool's Day

Here are the winning entries for our April Fool's Day Contest - thanks to everyone who entered, and look for their credits at the end of the post! Now to enjoy the luxury of not having to write something today...

April 1st, 2006

in 291 rotations past the cresting of the Great Star, a member of the Culture Ministry, his name lost to time, decided that particular day should be dedicated to playing tricks, pranks, and perpetrating well-intentioned deceit on friends and family members. The activity went off well, and the balefully amused associates admitted it would be a fine idea to, in the future, designate that particular day for such fun. Unfortunately, the idiosyncratic calendar-keeping in effect amongst the People meant that waiting for the next day of Third Phase of Primary Moon, First Phase of Distant Moon, 189 Days from the Counting of the Census, 21 Days until the Elections of the Royal Arbiters, 3001 Days until the Coming of the Long-Tailed Comet would be so distant it is doubtful it could have been calculated in their lifetime

In 1883, horror film actor Len Chaney is born. Known for his unchanging expression and occasionally wooden delivery, he was called "The Great Stone Face."

in 1950, the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League debuted a new baseball uniform: shorts above the knees, rayon T-shirts, and knee-high socks. It was meant as a joke, but after winning the game, the team decided to keep them for a while. After winning eight of their first nine games, they decided to use them for the rest of the season. The Stars went on to tie the Oakland Oaks in the standings at the end of the season, and the Stars won the three-game playoff two games to none. The next season, seven of the eight teams in the PCL started the season with short uniforms (the Portland Beavers held out until June before finally succumbing), and the look was adopted by teams in other leagues, including the Brooklyn Dodgers. The influence of the Stars and the PCL eventually led to the PCL becoming the third major league in 1958, after unsuccessful attempts by Brooklyn and the New York Giants to move west.

in 1957, the BBC airs a documentary about Swiss spaghetti trees on its Panorama programme. After the broadcast, many British restaurants acquired their own spaghetti trees and now it is possible to determine how good a restaurant's pasta will be just by the look of their spaghetti trees.

In 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne found Apple Computers. Apple has since gone on to become one of the biggest and powerful computer companies in the world, although there have been monopoly allegations and government antitrust suits.

In 1997, news reporters everywhere report of an alien invasion; this is dismissed as an April Fool's Day prank by the public, until the fearsome ships of the Ralv Shera Dowan fleet begin attacking major cities.

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In 2004, in a rare case of fiction turning into truth, the People's Electronic Mail Initiative (PEMI) was unveiled to the general public. The ambitious government-run project aimed to provide every worker
with an electronic mail account, using massive server farms located in the California Soviet. Coincidentally, a prank press release several years prior had alluded to a similar project which it had dubbed "G-mail" (for "Government Mail"); it was by this name that PEMI became more widely known.

Thanks and congratulations to all of our April Fool's Winners – Eric & Laura Gjovaag, Mamoru Bii, Jake Dominguez, Max Liebersohn and GamerGrrl!

Today's "Six Degrees of Star Trek" challenge: Connect Slaughter High AKA April Fool's Day to Star Trek. Place your answers in the comments and see the Forum for previous results. For more on 6 degrees games, click here.

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