Gmail launches on April Fools' Day

APR 01 2004

Google announced Gmail on 1 April 2004, offering a gigabyte of free storage at a time when Hotmail gave users two megabytes. Because Google had spent four years publishing elaborate April Fools' hoaxes, and because the announcement was written in a jokey register, much of the press assumed it was another gag. The product was entirely real, producing an inversion in which the truth was disbelieved because of the date. Frequently listed as a Google April Fools' hoax. It was a genuine product launch that merely landed on 1 April; the same day Google separately ran a fake job posting for its Copernicus lunar research centre.