April Fools

Revellers dressed in mock military garb take part in "Els Enfarinats" food-battle in the southeastern Spanish town of Ibi on December 28, 2022, a celebration ...

Sizdah Bedar, which is [said](https://surfiran.com/sizdah-bedar-festival-iran/) to have been [ celebrated as far back as the 5th century BC](https://www.learnpersianonline.com/blog/persian-traditions-sizdah-bedar-13th-day-nowrouz/), is translated as “getting rid of 13,” so it has an appropriately superstitious air. In Brazil, however, April 1 is still the prank day of choice, and they cut straight to the chase by calling it “ [Dia das Mentiras](https://www.brownandhudson.com/news/article/april-fools-day),” or “Day of Lies.” [Day of the Innocents](https://panoramas.secure.pitt.edu/%E2%80%9C%C2%A1inocente-inocente%E2%80%9D-day-innocents-latin-america%E2%80%99s-april-fools%E2%80%99-day),” a late December Catholic feast with extremely un-silly origins that somehow became a day of jokes and pranks. If you don’t get gowked, there’s always an opportunity for humiliation the next day, which is “Tailie Day.” Tailie Day is for largely harmless derrière-related pranks, like pinning a tail on someone or sticking a sign on their back. However, research did turn up a [fantastic parting phrase](https://www.tbnpolska.tv/newsy/prima-aprilis-uwazaj-bo-sie-pomylisz) for prankers: Prima Aprilis, uważaj, bo się pomylisz! The “Els Enfarinats” tradition is reportedly more than 200 years old and involves a mock military-style “takeover” of the town, where the new rulers get to make up strange laws that others have to abide by. [one apocryphal origin theory](http://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/origin_of_april_fools_day) suggests that when France switched from the Julian calendar to the current Gregorian calendar in the 1500s, people thought it would be funny to jokingly celebrate the old “New Year’s” and make fun of people who forgot the change. Iran could boast the oldest April Fools’ traditions with its observance of Sizdah Bedar, which also has a prank-playing element. [stick paper fish on other people’s backs](https://frenchmoments.eu/april-fools-day-traditions-in-france-le-1er-avril/), kind of like an elevated “kick me” sign. A little flour throwing, a little dancing, and the day of Risk-inspired LARPing is complete. For some cultures, it’s not even relegated to one day in April, cracking the calendar wide open for multi-seasonal chaos. In France, a longstanding tradition is to

April Fools' Day: Why do we collectively try to mess with others on 1 April, and how do countries celebrate this festival of foolishness?

Only the Netherlands had to be sacrificed on the alter of prank this year. Just to be clear – the rest of this article is based on facts. The Portuguese don’t celebrate April Fools’ Day on 1 April and prefer the Sunday and Monday prior to Lent. The prank first appeared in a British newspaper on 2 April 1698, where an article on the front page read: "Yesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed." In 2008, they fooled their audience again with their viral Miracles of Evolution trailer, which appeared to show some special penguins that had regained the ability to fly. In England, it had become a popular prank to send gullible victims to the Tower of London to see the washing of the lions – a ceremony that didn’t exist. Much later on, the BBC infamously reported on 1 April 1957 in a spoof segment that Swiss farmers were experiencing a record spaghetti crop and showed footage of people harvesting noodles from trees. It is called Gowkie Day, for the gowk - or cuckoo - a symbol of the fool. When the person receives the letter, they open it, read it and tell the messenger that they will have to take the letter to another person. April Fools’ Day is only celebrated for half a day in England. Others have pointed out that the Holi festival in India, which also takes place in March, could be the source of the day. Many trace the custom back to medieval France where 25 March used to be New Year's Day until the Julian calendar was reformed in 1564 and changed to the Gregorian calendar.

For decades, the first of April has been a day in which the public is tricked into believing crazy hoaxes — and is surprised by lighthearted pranks.

Another infamous gag on April Fools' Day occurred in the U.K. Therefore, hundreds of people called the network asking how to grow their own spaghetti trees before the BBC clarified it was a prank. The network ran a report on April Fools' Day that featured a Swiss family harvesting a record number of spaghetti crops from a purported "spaghetti tree." [CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER](https://www.foxnews.com/newsletters?cmpid=fnfirstnl) Federal Treasury building in Washington, D.C. citizens during this period had limited knowledge of pasta.

Oh, for the days when April Fools' Day hoaxes and pranks could cause lines outside liquor stores or prompt people to smell their TVs or choke telephone lines ...

The news was a joke, of course, but that was little comfort to 700 panicky callers alarmed by the story. In 1994, PC Magazine ran a column about a bill making its way through Congress that would prohibit the use of the internet while intoxicated. The value of the joke, of course, was priceless. Skip to the 2:25 mark on the video: In other TV-related jokes, in 1962, the Swedish national network put on a technical expert who told the public that its black-and-white broadcasts could be made color by viewing them through nylon stockings. On April 1, 1957, the BBC TV show "Panorama" ran a segment about the Swiss spaghetti harvest enjoying a "bumper year" thanks to mild weather and the elimination of the spaghetti weevil. 1 April Fools' hoax of all time by the Museum of Hoaxes website -- a fine source for all things foolish. That hasn't stopped it from popping up again in the digital era, however. In this now-classic 1996 prank, Taco Bell took out newspaper ads saying it had bought the Liberty Bell "in an effort to help the national debt." Though the news was a hoax from a man named Mark Boslough, it became widely disseminated and believed. No wonder: In 1897, the Indiana legislature attempted to pass a bill establishing pi as 3.2 (among other numbers). Well, to prepare you for this day of trickery, here are 10 of the best April Fools' pranks in history.