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U-Fool!
April Fool's Day is one of the most light hearted days of the year, yet it stems from a serious subject—the adoption of a new calendar.
Ancient cultures, including those as varied as the Romans and the Hindus, celebrated New Year's Day on April 1st. It closely follows the vernal equinox (March 20th or March 21st.)
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calendar (the Gregorian Calendar) to replace the old Julian Calendar. The new calendar called for New Year's Day to be celebrated on January 1st.
In France, however, many people either refused to accept the new date, or did not learn about it, and continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April 1st. Other people began to make fun of these traditionalists, sending them on "fool's errands" or trying to trick them into believing something false. The French came to call April 1 Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish."
In 1752, Britain finally changed over to the Gregorian Calendar, and April Fool's Day began to be celebrated in England and in the American colonies.
Pranks and jokes are of course still popular on this day—not to mention the rest of the year.
Here are just a few of the most famous (or infamous!) ones:
1938
Known for his flair for the dramatic, Orson Welles, with members of his Mercury Theatre Company, incited mass hysteria and earned themselves national fame in 1938 when they performed an adaptation of of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds on their CBS radio show. The players used a news broadcast format and announced that visitors from Mars had invaded New Jersey. Thousands of panicked New Jersey citizens fainted, fled their homes, and jammed telephone lines when they heard Welles say, "Good heavens, something's wiggling out of the shadow like a grey snake. I can see the thing's body now. It's large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather." Welles said of the frenzied reaction, "The size of it was flabbergasting!"
1958
In 1958 the respected BBC documentary programme Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees! To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."
1976
In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47am a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47am arrived, the station began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room!
1978
On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbour towing a giant iceberg. People were even expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he intended to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavour of any drink they cooled. Slowly, the iceberg made its way into the harbour. Local television and radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbour was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.
1989
On March 31, 1989 thousands of motorists traveling on the M25 looked up in the air to see a glowing flying saucer descending on London. Many of them pulled to the side of the road to watch the bizarre craft fly through the air. The saucer finally landed in a field on the outskirts of London where hundreds of local residents immediately called the police to warn them of an alien invasion. Soon the police arrived on the scene, and one brave officer approached the craft with his truncheon extended before him. When a door in the craft popped open, and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite direction. The saucer turned out to be a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the chairman of Virgin. The stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love of pranks. His plan was to land the craft in London's Hyde Park on April 1. Unfortunately, the wind blew him off course, and he was forced to land a day early in the wrong location.
2003
An April Fool joke about a replica of the Titanic almost ended in fresh disaster when a local radio DJ in Brighton told his listeners that a replica of the ship would be seen off the coast at Beachy Head, East Sussex. Hundreds of his listeners believed him and raced to the soaring beauty spot. But their disappointment at realising it was a prank was replaced by panic when a 5ft wide crack appeared in the 400ft cliff face! Coastguards and local council officials ordered people to leave and immediately cordoned off the area. The coastguard was less than happy with Southern FM, whose only clue to listeners that it was a hoax was in stating that the replica was built by a company called AFD (April Fools Day).
April Fool's Day is one of the most light hearted days of the year, yet it stems from a serious subject—the adoption of a new calendar.
Ancient cultures, including those as varied as the Romans and the Hindus, celebrated New Year's Day on April 1st. It closely follows the vernal equinox (March 20th or March 21st.)
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calendar (the Gregorian Calendar) to replace the old Julian Calendar. The new calendar called for New Year's Day to be celebrated on January 1st.
In France, however, many people either refused to accept the new date, or did not learn about it, and continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April 1st. Other people began to make fun of these traditionalists, sending them on "fool's errands" or trying to trick them into believing something false. The French came to call April 1 Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish."
In 1752, Britain finally changed over to the Gregorian Calendar, and April Fool's Day began to be celebrated in England and in the American colonies.
Pranks and jokes are of course still popular on this day—not to mention the rest of the year.
Here are just a few of the most famous (or infamous!) ones:
1938
Known for his flair for the dramatic, Orson Welles, with members of his Mercury Theatre Company, incited mass hysteria and earned themselves national fame in 1938 when they performed an adaptation of of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds on their CBS radio show. The players used a news broadcast format and announced that visitors from Mars had invaded New Jersey. Thousands of panicked New Jersey citizens fainted, fled their homes, and jammed telephone lines when they heard Welles say, "Good heavens, something's wiggling out of the shadow like a grey snake. I can see the thing's body now. It's large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather." Welles said of the frenzied reaction, "The size of it was flabbergasting!"
1958
In 1958 the respected BBC documentary programme Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees! To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."
1976
In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47am a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47am arrived, the station began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room!
1978
On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbour towing a giant iceberg. People were even expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he intended to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavour of any drink they cooled. Slowly, the iceberg made its way into the harbour. Local television and radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbour was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.
1989
On March 31, 1989 thousands of motorists traveling on the M25 looked up in the air to see a glowing flying saucer descending on London. Many of them pulled to the side of the road to watch the bizarre craft fly through the air. The saucer finally landed in a field on the outskirts of London where hundreds of local residents immediately called the police to warn them of an alien invasion. Soon the police arrived on the scene, and one brave officer approached the craft with his truncheon extended before him. When a door in the craft popped open, and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite direction. The saucer turned out to be a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the chairman of Virgin. The stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love of pranks. His plan was to land the craft in London's Hyde Park on April 1. Unfortunately, the wind blew him off course, and he was forced to land a day early in the wrong location.
2003
An April Fool joke about a replica of the Titanic almost ended in fresh disaster when a local radio DJ in Brighton told his listeners that a replica of the ship would be seen off the coast at Beachy Head, East Sussex. Hundreds of his listeners believed him and raced to the soaring beauty spot. But their disappointment at realising it was a prank was replaced by panic when a 5ft wide crack appeared in the 400ft cliff face! Coastguards and local council officials ordered people to leave and immediately cordoned off the area. The coastguard was less than happy with Southern FM, whose only clue to listeners that it was a hoax was in stating that the replica was built by a company called AFD (April Fools Day).