Before Gmail, there was Garfield Mail

The domain, Gmail.com was created on August 13, 1995. Google acquired the domain Gmail.com sometime between early March and July of 2000. The Gmail email service was offered to the public a few years later on April 1st, 2004. What was Gmail.com before Google owned it? Garfield mail. That's right, fans of the obese cartoon cat, which grosses between $750 million and $1 billion annually, could set up an email account ending in @gmail.com.

I could only imagine the embarrassment of explaining your email account to someone prior to Google's acquisition.