April Fool’s just passed a few days ago, and while we were able to avoid some articles that are posted for laughs and giggles, we decided to talk about some headlines that made their way during the holiday that turned out to be real. Some of them are actually sad, so heads up!
One of them was the announcement of Marvin Gaye’s death. The singer was shot by his father, Marvin Gaye Sr. on April 1, 1984. The tragic event puzzled people at the time of its announcement, as they thought it was just a bad prank by the media. Even the singer’s close friend, Smokey Robinson, initially believed it was nothing but a morbid joke by the radio station he had on when he heard the news.
Another example on the less morbid side is the announcement of a beta version of Google’s new email service (which is GMail at present). The invitation-only beta was released on April 1, 2004. The idea seemed like a prank and fantasy whipped up by the Internet giant– especially the big space the application offered (1GB) at a time when Yahoo and Hotmail were only offering 2MB and 4MB.
If you’d like to read other headlines, check out this piece by The Wrap!
Image credit: Kaboompics .com