So far today you’ve put toothpaste in your kid’s Oreos, brought mayo-filled Krispy Kremes to your co-workers, and placed a rubber band around the faucet sprayer as a surprise for your spouse.
“It’s April Fools' Day,” would likely be your defense, unless you do this sort of thing all the time. If you don't, and it's a seasonal thing, we get you.
What is it about the first day of April that brings out the prankster, or the fool (you know who you are) in us?
Here’s a quick look at the history, the mystery and the madness of April Fools' Day.
The History
This is the short explanation – no one knows when or why April Fools' Day was created. Theories as to the origin of the day of pranking range from holidays celebrated by the Romans and Hindus, -- new year’s came for them around April 1 – to a riff on the Feast of the Annunciation or the vernal equinox.
Where does the “fool” part come in?
Again, the history is fuzzy on this, but in 1582 a new calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII that moved the first day of the new year to Jan. 1. The 1580s being what they were, news traveled a bit slow and some didn’t get the memo, so they continued to celebrate new year’s on April 1. These people were mocked by the hipper, calendar-wise set, and often sent on “fool’s errands” just to twist the knife, as it were.
That explanation could, itself, be an April Fool’s joke. Seems, the Gregorian calendar was adopted in England in 1752, but the country had been celebrating April Fools' prior to that. In fact, a correspondent for British Apollo magazine wrote in 1708, "Whence proceeds the custom of making April Fools?"
So there’s that.
Anyway ….
Another theory holds that the day is tied to Hilaria, a Roman festival that saw people dressing in costume to celebrate the resurrection of the Roman God Attis. The festival was also known as Roman Laughing Day.
Some facts, trivia about April Fool’s Day
- There is a vague reference to April Fools' Day in Geoffrey Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale.
- There is a record of the English playing practical jokes on each other beginning in 1700.
- The Scots and the Irish sought out fools to ask them to deliver a letter. When the "fool" complied, the person they delivered the letter to came in on the joke and sent the "fool" to deliver it to another person. This went on until the "fool" caught on, or until it was April 2. In Scotland, the letter would read, "Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile.'
- Since 536 B.C., Iranians have played jokes on the 13th day of the Persian New Year, which falls on April 1 or 2.
- In France, kids tape paper fish to their friends' backs as a way of acknowledging the fool.
- Hindus in India and around the world celebrate the color festival of Holi. Part of the celebration involves playing jokes on each other.
- According to tradition, pranks should end by noon on April 1.
Notable pranks
- Expedia offer customers trips to mars for $99, claiming the buyer would save 3 trillion dollars.
- In 1996, Taco Bell ran a full-page ad in major newspapers telling consumers it had purchased the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and will be renaming it the "Taco Liberty Bell."
- One of the best came from the BBC in 1957 which aired a spot that said spaghetti crops in Switzerland would be doing particularly well that year, then had footage of a woman picking strands off a "spaghetti tree" and laying them in the sun to dry.
- In 1975, an Australian TV station announced the country would change to a metric time system using millidays, centidays and decidays.
Some ideas for your pranks
Sources: The BBC; History.com; Triviachamp.com; Mirror.com; Infoplease.com
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