Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

April 1, 1925: Selling cigarettes becomes legal in North Dakota for the first time in 12 years after the repeal of its tobacco ban. State officials hope for a gain in sales taxes. A ban remains on smoking in restaurants, "believed to be the only law of its kind in existence."




PHOTO OF THE DAY: A triple decker bus in Berlin. Beat that, Britain!


But it wasn’t real, as it was created by a newspaper as an April Fool’s joke (1926).


Busy day harvesting Spaghetti!!



On 1 April 1957, a news segment was broadcast about the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest with footage of Swiss peasants harvesting spaghetti strands from spaghetti trees. Many viewers were taken in and phoned in asking how to grow their own spaghetti trees; they received the reply "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

BBC tells a tale of a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the fictitious spaghetti tree, broadcast at a time when this Italian dish was not widely eaten in the UK and some naive Britons were unaware that spaghetti is a pasta made from wheat flour and water.
It was considered one of the best April Fools' hoaxes of all time.

68 years later and BBC continues to fool many with their home grown propaganda; funded in part by USAID.


Flying Saucers Comics (Dell) No. 1, April 1967


You can read the whole comic mag here.


April 1, 1975: In Kaiseraugst, Switzerland, 500 anti-nuclear protestors occupy a site planned for the construction of a nuclear power plant. This action was inspired by the Wyhl Nuclear Plant, Germany to protest a proposed nuclear power plant in February 1975.


Today, Switzerland has 4 active nuke plants and Germany has ZERO, after the last three operational nuclear power plants were shutdown in April 2023. Today they have energy woes due to, well you know the story. Oddly, France has 57 active, more than any other European country, including Russia. Ukraine has 15, with 2 under construction. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe is the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, located in southeastern Ukraine near the city of Enerhodar, on the southern shore of the Kakhovka Reservoir along the Dnieper River. It has six reactors with a total net capacity of 5,700 megawatts (MW), making it not only the largest in Europe but also one of the largest in the world. It was seized by Russia in 2022.



Black Sunday: On this day in 1977.




April 1, 1979: President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter visited Three Mile Island.




April 1, 1984: The nascent internet's first April Fools Day prank. Konstantin Chernenko joins the Usenet. The kremvax hoax. In Amsterdam, a 40-year-old computer wiz named Piet Beertema had an idea: He would trick Americans into believing that the Soviet Union was joining the Usenet network.

A hoax that shocked the (in the sense of networking still mostly American) world.

It was 1984, and the world was still in the middle of the Cold War, so any form of network connectivity to any East Block country, let alone the USSR, was unthinkable and considered a direct threat to (US) national security, as was the idea of modern computer technology (Digital Equipment Corporation's 'VAX') being in the hands of the Soviets. Konstantin Chernenko was prime minister of the USSR, General Secretary of the Communist Party and head of the 'Politburo' (the body that had the real political power in that time).

Here's the original Usenet article:



followup

Obviously the article caused a flood of reactions, especially from the US, and of course I had taken care that they were all directed to my own mailbox.

After 2 weeks, when some people had started worrying about the costs (!) the discussion about the "hoax-or-for-real" was causing on Usenet (costs? sure, most of the network then was still a dial-up network and modems were very slow), I revealed the real source, while including some of the reactions I got.

Here's how it ended:
The kremvax hoax

As of 2024, Beertema added an update at link ^^^

In case his site page disappears I archived it here

Newsweek story: 'Kremvax': The Strange Story of the Internet's First April Fools' Prank




John Oliver Sued for Defamation by Healthcare Exec Over Blistering Medicaid Rant

The Youtube clip
Trivia: John Oliver has never (so far) settled or lost a defamation suit.


USS Minnesota (SSN 783) Virginia-class Block II attack submarine coming into Darwin, Australia along with USS Emory S. Land (AS-39) Emory S. Land-class submarine tender, March 27, 2025.



US submarine USS Minnesota surfaces just metres away from Port of Darwin amid scrutiny of its Chinese leaseholder


April 1, 2025: German Navy Type 212A (diesel-electric) attack submarine S183 (U33) coming into Kiel, Germany.




April kicks off with a mushroom fireball. Over 100 people injured after gas pipeline explodes in Malaysia.


Gas pipeline explosion sparks large fire in Malaysia (Video)