Fooled Ya
Since today is April Fool's day and I'm not feeling very foolish or, for that matter, much like being tricked, pranked, or generally ribbed in any way and the historian in me seems to be frothing at the mouth for something to look up... I've got a bit of background on this day for you all.
What is April Fool's Day?
Celebrated on April 1 of each year, April Fool's Day is a day when people enjoy playing practical jokes on one another. Usually these jokes are of a harmless nature and just generally funny.
How did this day come about?
That's the hard part to nail down. By far the most widely believed story is that when the western world employed the Julian calendar, New Years began on March 25th and celebrations were held on the 1st of April because the 25th fell during Holy Week. When they switched over to the Gregorian calendar during the 1500's, New Years was moved to January 1st. Basically the prank was that those who could be tricked into believing that April 1st was still New Years were dubbed April Fools and teased about it. Supposedly family members and friends would drop by trying to convince you they were there to celebrate the holiday. It's said then, that the tradition grew into one of testing the patience of one's friends and family.
But wait! There's more:
Another theory in The Encyclopedia of Religion as well as The Encyclopedia Britannica is that the day of pranks is related to the arrival of spring, when nature "fools" us with fickle weather.
Then there's The Country Diary of Garden Lore that states April Fools' Day commemorates the fruitless mission of the European crow that was sent in search of land from Noah's ark.
Yet another theory is that it has to do with the festivities held on the Vernal Equinox.
And another is that it ties in with the Roman's celebration of the end of winter, Hilaria, and the end of the Celtic New Year festival.
Source
No matter how the day was started it has continued to be a day when the pranksters of the world come out and play. Some well-known pranks of the past have been chronicled on Wikipedia a few of my favorites are-
April 1st: This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred and sixty-four. Mark Twain
What is April Fool's Day?
Celebrated on April 1 of each year, April Fool's Day is a day when people enjoy playing practical jokes on one another. Usually these jokes are of a harmless nature and just generally funny.
How did this day come about?
That's the hard part to nail down. By far the most widely believed story is that when the western world employed the Julian calendar, New Years began on March 25th and celebrations were held on the 1st of April because the 25th fell during Holy Week. When they switched over to the Gregorian calendar during the 1500's, New Years was moved to January 1st. Basically the prank was that those who could be tricked into believing that April 1st was still New Years were dubbed April Fools and teased about it. Supposedly family members and friends would drop by trying to convince you they were there to celebrate the holiday. It's said then, that the tradition grew into one of testing the patience of one's friends and family.
But wait! There's more:
Another theory in The Encyclopedia of Religion as well as The Encyclopedia Britannica is that the day of pranks is related to the arrival of spring, when nature "fools" us with fickle weather.
Then there's The Country Diary of Garden Lore that states April Fools' Day commemorates the fruitless mission of the European crow that was sent in search of land from Noah's ark.
Yet another theory is that it has to do with the festivities held on the Vernal Equinox.
And another is that it ties in with the Roman's celebration of the end of winter, Hilaria, and the end of the Celtic New Year festival.
Source
No matter how the day was started it has continued to be a day when the pranksters of the world come out and play. Some well-known pranks of the past have been chronicled on Wikipedia a few of my favorites are-
+ Warning against counterfeit BMWs: the blue and white parts of the logo were reversed
+ Spaghetti trees: The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing the Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees. 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. It was in fact filmed in St Albans.
+ radio station WAAF 107.3 in Boston announced that Pearl Jam was having a free concert in a fictitious city in New Hampshire. A gas station in New Hampshire reported that several streams of car drivers stopped in asking for directions to the fictional town.
+ In 1962, all times most famous April joke in Sweden was performed. A well-known TV person in the SVT said with a fully serious voice that one could get colour images from a black-and-white TV set by covering the image with a nylon stocking. Thousands of people tried that.
+ As part of an April Fools' joke on April 1, 1997, Alex Trebek and Pat Sajak switched hosting duties. Pat hosted Jeopardy! that day and Alex hosted Wheel of Fortune where Sajak and Vanna White played as contestants. Jeopardy! announcer Johnny Gilbert did double duties that day
+ Assassination of Bill Gates: In 2003, many Chinese and South Korean websites claimed that CNN reported Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was assassinated, resulting in a 1.5% drop in the Korean stock market
+ "Introducing LivePoke! Facebook will dispatch a real live person today to poke a friend of your choice. (offer good for only the first 100 pokers in each network)"
Those are just a small sampling and a few of my personal favorites. There's really a ton of them listed. Anyhow, watch your back today folks, you never know what might hit you.April 1st: This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred and sixty-four. Mark Twain
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