Apple was founded 44 years ago on April Fools' Day: Fascinating facts you didn't know

For the entire world, April 1 is a day when pranks are pulled to celebrate April Fools' Day. But this date also has another significance in history, which not many of us instantly recall. On this day, 44 years ago, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne signed a contract founding the Apple Computer Company. That's right! The world's most valuable company was officially founded on April Fools' Day in 1976.

Apple, to this day, remains one of the most familiar names around the world. Its products are widely known and used by consumers around the world and represent a symbol of status in many cases. From iPhones to iPads and MacBooks and more, Apple now has a wide range of premium products when it fact it started out as a personal computer manufacturer.

We all know about Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak starting out their epic journey in a garage and now Apple owns one of the coolest campuses in the world - The Apple Park aka spaceship campus. But let's go back in time a few decades and we bet you didn't know these fascinating facts about Apple.

Fascinating facts about Apple

We all know Apple's founding fathers were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. But did you know that in the initial days of Apple, Ronald Wayne had some strong backing to the company that is all so successful today. Wayne was a part of the contract, which gave him 10 percent of the company stock, which would easily be well over $94 billion in today's worth. But Wayne, who provided administrative oversight and documentation for then new venture, cashed out early by selling his stock for just $800. Also, he doesn't regret his decision a bit.

If you ever wondered why name the company Apple, Jobs believed it sounded "fun, spirited and not intimidating." But it is the original logo that gets the attention. Before the infamous bitten Apple logo, the company's logo was of Newton sitting under an apple tree, which helped him discover gravity. There's a drape covering the photo that read Apple Computer Co. But don't we all love the current design.

There are other wild theories behind Apple's logo, which include Alan Turing, who committed suicide by eating cyanide infused Apple and another one would be of the story of Adam and Eve from the Old Testament.

In today's world when Apple's sales figures are a benchmark for the industry, Jobs and Wozniak had a fair share of struggles back in the day. The original Apple I computers were a hard-sell, but the dynamic duo managed to sell 200 of those monitor-less computers. What was sold at less than $1,000 a pop, are now worth hundreds and thousands of dollars considering they are now collectors' items. Later on, Apple computers evolved to add a monitor and keyboard, in return boosting sales.

Apple's marketing game is really, really strong today. But it all started out with an advertisement for its Mac and we bet you won't just stumble upon Apple's first ad. What's great about the ad is that it has topped Advertising Age's list of 50 greatest commercials ever made. Here's what Apple's first ad from 1984 was like. Take a look:

While it might be hard to imagine Apple without its public face Jobs, but how many of you knew that Jobs was asked to leave his own company, albeit for a brief time after a scuffle with John Sculley. From his time away from Apple, Jobs founded NeXT, a company focused in designing and building high-end workstations for use in academia. But Apple bought NeXT and Jobs returned to running the show at the company 12 years later.

When Microsoft's software was booming in the eighties, Jobs called Bill Gates personally to ask him to make Office for Mac. Aren't we thankful for that call today?

While we know of all the iPhones, iPads, Macs, iPods, Watch and MacBooks, Apple did bring other lesser-known products back in the years. They include, Apple Pippin gaming console, Apple Newton, QuickTake 100 digital camera among others.

But without failures, there's no success. Apple went on to grow stronger and it was the first company to have a record market capitalization of $1 trillion. Happy 44th birthday Apple and thank you for the tech fairy tale every startup and entrepreneur can take inspiration from.