April Fool's Day
April Fool's Day is a day when every kind of joke (April fools joke) is allowed, and full forgiveness is expected. There are two running theories on its origin.
In the Julian calendar, April 1st was designated as the New Year's Day and was celebrated as such until 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII ordered the adoption of the new Gregorian Calendar, which specified January 1st as the New Year's Day. Many French resisted the New Year's Day change, and as a result they were dubbed fools and made the victim of pranks. They were sent on 'fool's errands,' delivered fake invitations for parties and tricked into believing things that weren't true.
The French call April 1st Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish." French children sometimes tape a picture of a fish on the back of their schoolmates, crying "Poisson d'Avril" when the prank is discovered.
A second theory of the April Fools' Day origin was provided by Joseph Boskin, a professor of history at Boston University. He explained that the practice began during the reign of Constantine, when a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could do a better job of running the empire. Constantine, amused, allowed a jester named Kugel to be king for one day.
A possible reference to April Fools' Day can be seen in the Canterbury Tales (1400) in the Nun's Priest's tale, a tale of two fools: Chanticleer and the fox, which took place on March 32nd.
In some places, one is only allowed to play jokes until noon, the jokes played after that time are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator. It has also been believed that victims should endure the pranks with a smile or else they might suffer bad luck.
April Fools Day is always celebrated on April 1st except in a month with three full moons, in which case it is celebrated on April 2nd.
FAMOUS APRIL FOOLS DAY PRANKS
1. The BBC television program Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing the Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees on its current affairs programme Panorama.. They had claimed that the despised pest, the spaghetti weevil, had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees.
2. In 1970 John & Yoko release hoax they are having dual sex change operations
3. In 1973 John & Yoko form a new country with no laws or boundaries, called Nutopia, its national anthem is silence
4. In 1976 The Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect hoax is first reported by British astronomer Patrick Moore.
5. In 1981 CNN airs a videotape that shows that Tamara Rand predicted that Reagan is in danger from someone named Jack Humley (a hoax)
6. George Plimpton wrote a 1985 article in Sports Illustrated about a New York Mets prospect named Sidd Finch, who could throw a 168 mph (270 km/h) fastball with pinpoint accuracy. This kid, known as "Barefoot" Sidd (hartha) Finch, reportedly learned to pitch in a Buddhist monastery. The first letter of each word in the article subhead spelled out the fact of its being an April Fool joke.
7. In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose condiments were designed to drip out of the right side. Not only did customers order the new burgers, but some specifically requested the "old", right-handed burger.
8. In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to "reduce the country's debt" and renamed it the "Taco Liberty Bell." When asked about the sale, White House press secretary Mike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
9. In 2008, the BBC reported on a newly discovered colony of flying penguins. An elaborate video segment was even produced, featuring Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) walking with the penguins in Antarctica, and following their flight to the Amazon rainforest.
More April Fools Day Pranks - CLICK HERE
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