After you read these historic jokes, check out the Special Collections index for the best prank postings on 6 foolish topics: RFCs, Microsoft, US Government, Linux, Usenet, and virii.

Here they are, democratically (kinda) decided upon, duely authorized and certified, top 20 fools:

1. JPEG Virus Alert - 1994 - 953 votes
   (note: Really folks... this was a hoax about JPG files. But as of September 2004, it seems the mightly Microsoft corporation has made it real :)
   
   
2. Microsoft Bids to Acquire Catholic Church - 1994 - 738 votes
   
   
3. Creators admit UNIX, C Hoax - 1991 - 514 votes
   
   
4. USSR on Usenet, the infamous 'kremvax' post (and replies part 1 and part 2) - 1984 - 397 votes
5. Microsoft Windows for the Macintosh - 1991 - 115 votes
6. Internet Downtime - 1996 (and its counter part Internet Cleaning - 1997) - 98 votes
7. RFC 1149: A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers - 1990 - 70 votes
8. Linux'95 final release - 1995 - 64 votes
9. CERT Advisory CA-96.13 - Alien/OS Vulnerability - 1996 - 63 votes
10. NASA Headline News: The Congressional Budget Explorer Module (CBEM) - 1994 - 55 votes
11. BMW Introduces It's Newest Innovation: ROAD WARMERS - 1989 - 51 votes
12. 911 Chatline - 1994 - 47 votes
13. BIG.MONEY.FAST - 1994 - 44 votes
14. Siggraph '91 Preliminary Program - 1991 - 41 votes (This is the webmasters personal favorite)
15. Apple Releases New Macintosh Extension: Caffeine Manager - 1992 - 34 votes
16. Fallwell Ministries takes over TSR, Inc. - 1994 - 34 votes
17. McDonalds and EUnet join to offer Global "Internet in a Lunchbox" - 1994 - 24 votes
18. FAQ: Top-level international planet domain names - 1993 - 22 votes
19. RFC 748: Telnet Randomly-Lose Option - 1978 - 20 votes
20. TeXhax Digest, Friday, April 1, 1988 - 1988 - 17 votes
21. Gene Spafford warns about April Fools on the net (and replies) - 1988 - 13 votes

Past Favorites, and those ALMOST getting into the top10 list:

• Bob the Windows Man - 1995
• RFC 2324 - Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0) - 1998
• Press Release: Announcing the hp58 - 1997
• Apple Releases Jewish System Software v1.0 - 1997
• 17mm format to replace 16mm format - 1997
• Press Release: Announcing the hp58 - 1997
• Network Access Reform from Vice President Al Gore - 1995
• A letter from Steve Case, President of AOL - 1995
• FBI 'Make Money Fast' Scam - 1994
• Bill Clinton warns the world about April 1 - 1995
• Usenet to be replaced - 1993
• April Fools pranks from Sun - 1998

VOTE!

Now's your chance to make your voice heard. Send us your vote with pointers to the posts you think should be included in this prestigous Top 20 Fools list (just mention the year and filename for each post you vote for). I'll compile all the votes, throw away the ones I don't like, add extra votes for the ones I do like, mix in some extra foolishness, and talley the results every hour (or whenever I feel like it).

Also: Don't miss the rest of the Special Collections.