April Fools Day

Why do we celebrate April Fools Day?

Why we have a sort of national day of pranks on April 1st is a bit of a mystery, but like all mysteries, there are a few theories floating about.

- Before the West began using the Julian calendar, the year began on March 25th, the new year beginning with the with the start of spring. However. since that day fell in the Holy Week, it was celebrated on the first of April. When we switched to the Gregorian calendar in the 1500s, we moved the New Year to the first of January. According to the most widely told story, those who still celebrated the New Year on April 1st were called April fools.

- The Encyclopedia of Religion and the Encyclopedia Britannica thinks that the timing of April Fool's Day is directly related to the arrival of Spring, when nature "fools" humans with erratic weather.

- The Country Diary of Garden Lore indicates that April Fools Day commemorates "the fruitless mission of the rook (the European crow) who was sent out in search of land from Noah's flood-surrounded ark."

- The day may date back as far as the Roman Empire, stemming from the festival of Ceralia. In Roman legend, Pluto carried Proserpina off from the Elysian meadows, leaving her mother Ceres on a fools errand, chasing only the echo of her daughter's pleas for help.

April Fools Day is celebrated around the world, with its own quirks, oddities, and hoaxes.

- In France, the day is called "Poisson d'Avril" meaning April Fish. The tradition is that French children will tape paper fish to the backs of their friends. When they would discover the fish on their back, the prankster would yell "Poisson d'Avril!" This odd custom's origin is something of a mystery.

- In Scotland the April fool is called April "gowk," Scottish for cuckoo. The Cuckoo is an emblem of simpletons.

- In England a fool is called a gob, gawby, or gobby.

Some foolish April 1st pranks

- In Canada, CHEZ FM fooled the listeners one April Fools Day, making listeners believe that it was the last day that the treasury would honor all the two-dollar bills still in circulation. They had people going through their change looking for the mysterious two-dollar coins that had mistakenly been minted from real gold. One newscaster on the news show CBO Morning announced that the clock in Ottawa's Peace Tower was being switched to digital.

- On 1 April 1957 on BBC's show Panorama opened with a line about Spring coming early this year, prompting the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland to be early as well. In the normal news manner, spaghetti's oddly uniform length was explained as the result of years of dedicated cultivation. The report stated that the ravenous spaghetti weevil had been conquered.

- Russia's usually staid Itar-Tass news agency reported the country's flourishing gangster class can now send their enemies to oblivion in style. It said a military factory was turning out diamond-encrusted grenades that would leave victims "in a sea of beautiful sparkling gems, rather than in a pool of blood."

- Belgium's l'Avenir newspaper told readers a European Union conference at the weekend in Turin had decided to cancel summer time -- which came into effect on Saturday night -- and told Belgians to put their watches back one hour. Also in Belgiam, a TV station invited people to the coast to watch a Japanese chef cook up a rare 20-metre (65-foot) beached shark into instant shark's fin soup.

- A Sri Lankan newspaper said Australian cricketer Shane Warne, whose team was humiliatingly defeated in the World Cup by Sri Lanka last month, had challenged the captain of the island's victorious team, Arjuna Ranatunga, to a boxing match.

- Britain's Guardian newspaper claimed the queen's cyberspace debut included an interactive tour of Buckingham Palace and a quiz about the royal family. The royal web site also gave virtual subjects the chance to swear an oath of loyalty in an "on-line audience" with the monarch.

April Fool's Day is a "for-fun-only" observance. Nobody is expected to buy gifts or to take their "significant other" out to eat in a fancy restaurant. Nobody gets off work or school. It's simply a fun little holiday, but a holiday on which one must remain forever vigilant, for he may be the next April Fool!

Where did April Fools Day come from?
The origins of designating April the 1st as a day for pranks and jollity are the subject of some debate, but there are generally two schools of thought on the matter:

Originally, New Year's Day was April 1. In 1564, King Charles IX decreed that with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, New Year's be moved to January 1. However, some people continued using April 1 as the date of the new year. These people were referred to as "April Fools"

In the early Roman calendar, April 1 was the first day of spring, and before 154 B.C. it was New Year's Day. Many celebrations of many cultures observed this day as the coming of the renewal of the earth and life. When the Christians came into power in the Roman empire, they created a celebration we call Easter that replaced the spring rituals. The old celebrations were ridiculed and made fun of. And people who observed these celebrations were persecuted. This was a chance to make fun of these "April Fools" who did not follow the correct beliefs.

North Americans play on this day with pranks and practical jokes, springing tricks on family and friends, then shouting out "April Fools!" Of course, the most clever April Fool joke is the one where everyone laughs, especially the person upon whom the joke is played.

You Know What They Say About Fools...

However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him. -- Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux

[Politicians] never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge. -- Thomas Reed

He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks. -- François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer

Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom. -- Elizabeth Gaskell

Looking foolish does the spirit good. -- John Updike

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. -- Mark Twain

A fool must now and then be right by chance. -- Cowper

It is better to be a fool than to be dead. -- Stevenson

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year. -- Mark Twain