Origins Of April Fool’s Day

This Is No Joke!

Who doesn't love April Fool's Day? What better holiday than one that gives people permission to instigate practical jokes with varying levels of complexities on family and friends? A holiday dedicated to embarrassing stunts and tricks pulled on the unsuspecting, does indeed deserve its own day. No one actually knows the real origins of April Fool's Day. Some believe that it began when Christian culture changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian one.

In the Julian calendar, May 1 was designed as the first day of summer. Someone could have changed this date to April 1 when the calendars were switched.

Many believe April 1 was assigned as the first day of the year, and when King Charles of France changed this day to January 1, many continue to celebrate New Year’s on April 1.

Other theories take us back to Noah's Arc, when Noah released the dove too early. Still others trace it back to Canterbury Tales, when a tale of two fools was featured in a story that took place in March.

In Rome a similar day was designated in the 18th century when men were encouraged to put on disguises that would change their looks in order to approach a woman to ask for her hand in marriage. At this time in history it was actually celebrated in February as a day to bring new happiness into a girl's life.

Some great April Fool's pranks have been perpetrated throughout history. On this day in 2008, a prankster at Brigham Young University put out a notice that all dorms would be torn down and that April 1 was the day designated for imploding the buildings. Although hundreds stood around all day waiting to see this feat, nothing took place and the prankster was never identified.

Back in 1957, the BBC aired a program called Panorama which showed pictures of Italians out in the fields harvesting spaghetti from a special strain of tree. They happily declared that they had successfully destroyed that last of the dreaded spaghetti weevil. The BBC was inundated with calls asking where to get the tree.

Taco Bell pulled a fast one when in 1996 they ran a full-page ad in The New York Times declaring that corporate headquarters had bought the Liberty Bell which was to be renamed the "Taco Liberty Bell." Even the White House was in on the joke. When then-press secretary Mike McCurry responded to an inquiry about the sale, with a dead pan look he told the reporter it was true, and added that in following suit, the US Government had just sold the Lincoln Memorial was being renamed the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

Following suit, in 1998 Burger King placed their ad in USA Today, proclaiming the invention of what they called the "Left-handed Whopper" especially and scientifically designed for condiments to drip off the right side. Because of this, all day that April 1, customers ordered both the left-handed and right-handed burgers.