In developer betas of iOS 4.3, Apple introduced new four- and five-finger multitasking gestures for the iPad. Those gestures didn't make it to the public release of iOS 4.3 for some reason, which was unfortunate because a lot of beta testers found them extremely useful. Fortunately, these new gestures have made the cut for iOS 5 -- at least for the iPad 2. Owners of the original iPad are still out of luck, it seems.
The gestures aren't active by default, but going into the General section of the Settings app will give you a simple On/Off choice. Apple even gives a handy mini-primer of what the gestures do:
Use four or five fingers to:
Pinch to the Home Screen
Swipe up to reveal multitasking
