History Today: How Gmail was born out of an April Fool's Day prank

Is it another joke? This was people’s reaction when Google launched its new mail service, Gmail, on April 1, 2004.

Many people thought it to be another one of the April Fool’s Day jokes that  Google co-founders Paul Buchheit and Sergey Brin pulled on the people.

If you are a history geek who loves to learn about important events from the past, Firstpost Explainers’ ongoing series, History Today will be your one-stop destination to explore key events.

In 2001, The Netherlands became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage on this day, granting equal marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Here is all that took place across the world.

Google launched Gmail

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin loved to pull pranks, not just on each other but on the rest of the people as well. The two made it a ritual to roll out outlandish ideas every April Fool’s Day.  Once Google posted a job opening for a Copernicus Research Centre on the moon while another year they said that the company was planning to roll out a scratch and sniff feature on the search engine.

Since the jokes were so over the top, people began to take them lightly and brush them off as another example of the mischief by Google creators. But, breaking a tradition since the company was established in 1998, Page and Brin decided to launch one of the most unbelievable things.

On April 1, 2004, the two launched Gmail, a limited beta service, boasting one gigabyte of storage per account. While this amount may sound menial in today’s day and age when one terabyte  phones are available in the market, it was a big deal 21 years ago. Compared to the webmail service provided by Yahoo and Microsoft which provided space for just 30 to 60 mails, Gmail could store up to provide 13,500 emails at a time.

Another key innovation was Google’s powerful search capabilities within Gmail, enabling users to find emails quickly instead of sorting them into folders manually. Gmail also introduced threaded conversations, grouping related emails together for easy navigation — a feature that became widely adopted across email platforms.

After its public release in 2007, Gmail rapidly gained popularity, eventually surpassing its competitors to become the world’s most widely used email service. Today, with over 1.8 billion users, Gmail remains an essential part of digital communication, offering seamless integration with Google services like Drive, Meet, and Calendar.

The Netherlands became the first country to grant equal marriage rights to same-sex couples

It was on this day in 2001, when the mayor of Amsterdam Job Cohen officiated the marriage of four couples in City Hall as the Netherlands became the first country in the world with legalised same-sex marriages.

While there are 28 countries in the world today that have allowed same-sex marriages, 14 years ago when the Dutch legalised it they were the first ones.  This landmark decision positioned the Netherlands as a global leader in LGBTQ+ rights and set a precedent for other nations to follow.

In December 2000, the Dutch Parliament passed the same-sex marriage law, with strong support from Prime Minister Wim Kok’s government. The law allowed same-sex couples to marry, adopt children and enjoy full legal protections equal to those of opposite-sex marriages.

The Netherlands’ decision to legalise same-sex marriage was rooted in its long-standing values of tolerance, human rights and inclusivity. The move was widely supported by Dutch society, reflecting the country’s progressive stance on LGBTQ+ issues.

According to Statistics Netherlands, there have been 20,000 same-sex couples who have exchanged vows in the Netherlands.

This Day, That Year

• In 2001, a midair collision between a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet took place.

• Ruhollah Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic republic on this day in 1979.

• In 1924, Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch.