On this day in 1700, English pranksters begin
popularizing the annual tradition of April
Fools’ Day by playing practical jokes on each
other.

Although the day, also called All Fools’ Day,
has been celebrated for several centuries by
different cultures, its exact origins remain a
mystery. Some historians speculate that April
Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France
switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, as called for by the
Council of Trent in 1563. People who were
slow to get the news or failed to recognize
that the start of the new year had moved to
January 1 and continued to celebrate it
during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes. These
included having paper fish placed on their
backs and being referred to as “poisson
d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young,
easily caught fish and a gullible person.

Historians have also linked April Fools’ Day to
ancient festivals such as Hilaria, which was
celebrated in Rome at the end of March and
involved people dressing up in disguises.
There’s also speculation that April Fools’ Day
was tied to the vernal equinox, or first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, when
Mother Nature fooled people with changing,
unpredictable weather.


April Fools’ Day spread throughout Britain
during the 18th century. In Scotland, the
tradition became a two-day event, starting
with “hunting the gowk,” in which people were
sent on phony errands (gowk is a word for
cuckoo bird, a symbol for fool) and followed by Tailie Day, which involved pranks played
on people’s derrieres, such as pinning fake
tails or “kick me” signs on them.


In modern times, people have gone to great
lengths to create elaborate April Fools’ Day
hoaxes. Newspapers, radio and TV stations
and Web sites have participated in the April 1
tradition of reporting outrageous fictional
claims that have fooled their audiences. In 1957, the BBC reported that Swiss farmers
were experiencing a record spaghetti crop
and showed footage of people harvesting
noodles from trees; numerous viewers were
fooled. In 1985, Sports Illustrated tricked many of its readers when it ran a made-up
article about a rookie pitcher named Sidd
Finch who could throw a fastball over 168
miles per hour. In 1996, Taco Bell, the fast-
food restaurant chain, duped people when it
announced it had agreed to purchase Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and intended to
rename it the Taco Liberty Bell. In 1998, after
Burger King advertised a “Left-Handed
Whopper,” scores of clueless customers
requested the fake sandwich.

Sourec:www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-fools-tradition-popularized