Are you ready for April 1st? April Fool’s Day is the one day a year where people and businesses can play jovial pranks. April Fool’s Day has been to associated to several different festivals throughout history. Historians have linked April Fools’ Day to festivals such as Hilaria in ancient Rome. It involved people dressing up in disguises and mocking fellow citizens and even magistrates. France also had a type of April Fool which date back to 1582. The popular prank at that time was placing a paper fish on people’s backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish). In Scotland, the tradition became a two-day event, starting with “hunting the gowk,” and followed by Tailie Day, both involved pranks such as sending people on fake errands, pinning fake tails or “kick me” signs on them.
Below are 10 interesting April Fool’s Day pranks:
- In 1996, the Taco Bell Corporation took out a full-page ad that appeared in six major newspapers saying that it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. The National Historic Park in Philadelphia received hundreds of outraged calls.
- In 1976, the BBC convinced many listeners that a special alignment of the planets would temporarily decrease gravity on Earth. Phone lines were flooded with callers who claimed they felt the effects.
- For April Fool’s Day in 1957, the BBC created a hoax in which they convinced the nation that spaghetti was grown from “spaghetti trees” in Italy and Switzerland.
- For April Fools Day in 1998, Burger King took out a full-page ad in the USA, introducing a Whopper designed especially for lefties. The new burger would contain the same ingredients as the original but rotated 180°. Thousands of customers swarmed BK restaurants requesting the “lefty” Whopper.
- Students once hacked the MIT website to say that Disney had bought the school for $6.9 billion.
- Sports Illustrated fooled the NY Mets’ fan base by successfully convincing them the team had signed Sidd Finch, a pitching phenom who could throw the ball 168 mph. He learned the “art of the pitch” in a Tibetan monastery, under the “great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa.”
- As an April Fool’s Day joke, Gamestation added a clause stating that users who placed an order on April 1, 2010, agreed to irrevocably give their soul to the company. 7,500 users agreed.
- Gmail first launched on April 1st, 2004. It was widely assumed the service was an April Fool’s Day joke!
- In 2002, NASA posted a picture that proved the moon was made of cheese which included an expiration date.
- Sun engineers rebuilt Eric Schmidt’s office on a pond as an April Fool’s Day joke.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
