Hoaxes pocus

Toothpaste to replace the Oreo filling; swapping out the vanilla pudding for some mayonnaise, laying in wait and then jumping out in a scary Halloween mask: these are some fun and (mostly) harmless pranks that you and I might try on this day of tricks. But these people took their April 1 antics to a whole new level.

Food machine

Thomas Edison produced the first commercially viable light bulb, something we take for granted today. At the time (the 1870s), it was hailed as a huge breakthrough and a game changer. So, the public loved Edison and looked forward to anything he worked on.

How about a food creator — a machine that can produce biscuits, meat, vegetables and wine from just air, water and soil? Sounds great, but unrealistic right?

On April 1, 1878, when the New York Graphic ran an announcement (Edison’s idea of course) saying that Edison had invented a machine that can produce biscuits, meat, vegetables and wine from just air, water and soil. Readers and other media houses lapped it up. The date of the announcement should have been a dead give-away, don’t you think? Maybe, but not always.

You’ve got mail

Google, famously, makes a fake product announcement every April 1, still managing to catch many of us unawares (make sure not to fall for their antics this time around!).

In 2010, they announced they were changing their name to ‘Topkea’ — the name of a city in Kansas, which was trying to win Google (and it’s experimental ultra-fast broadband network) over by temporarily changing it’s name to ‘Google’.

But they still haven’t been able to top their greatest prank —which turned out to not really be one at all. On the eve of April Fools’ Day in 2004, the company announced Gmail, a webmail service with 1 gigabyte (Gb) of free storage space. With Yahoo and Hotmail offering only an incredibly small fraction of that (think 1/500th) the announcement was received with scepticism. But here we are, almost 14 years later, with Gmail an important part of our lives.

Comeback kid

Michael Phelps had us fooled this time last year. To the excitement of his Internet followers, he tweeted that he would be making a comeback at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It was a good prank because it was believable — he had come out of retirement once for the 2016 Rio Olympics. But it was not to be, as he confirmed later in the day with the hash-tag ‘#aprilfools’.

Right side up

Marie Curie, Nobel laureate though she was, had a mischievous side too: noting a relative with a milk-drinking habit, she began to thin out the jug of milk he would drink with each meal. She diluted his milk a little more each day, until he finally noticed. This may sound tame, but for Curie’s next attempt to prank the same relative, she recruited her cousins. They then nailed the relative’s furniture and shoes to the ceiling!

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Now that you know that there are some who take this fun day rather seriously, here are two options for you this April Fools’ Day: stay on your guard and don’t get fooled, or, plan something crazy to trip up your friends!