April Fool’s Day 2018: Laugh a little with these fool-proof facts
While you are busy pranking family and friends, here are some lesser known facts about April Fool’s Day
Though there is no historical evidence for the exact reason and year April’s Fool’s day came to be celebrated, some believe it is associated with the Roman festival of Hilaria (the day of jokes), also known as Roman Laughing Day. It was supposed to be a day full of fun activities, which Romans celebrated on the March equinox in honour of the Anatolian Earth Goddess, Cybele. People would play dress-up and was also celebrated as the resurrection day for the Roman God Attis.
April Fool’s Day has also linkage to the Geoffrey Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales. In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale Chaucer speaks about Chauntecleer being fooled by a fox. ‘Syn March bigan thritty days and two’ – this was an error in the copy, but it changed the entire meaning of the sentence. The original line was supposed to mean 32 days after March that is May 2, but it was mistaken for March 32 or April 1. And thus began the celebration of April Fool’s Day.
It is said the day may have started because of the French and a change in France’s calendar in 1582 from Julian to Gregorian. This switch prompted their New Year to be moved from April 1 (which was as per the Julian calendar) to January 1 (as per the Gregorian calendar). But some people continued to celebrate the old New Year, because they hadn’t heard about the change and were called April Fools.
These people were made fun of with others playing tricks on them and sticking paper fish, Poisson d’Avril’ on their back – which was a symbol of being gullible. This tradition is still followed in France, Belgium, and French-speaking parts in Switzerland and Canada.
The first English reference dates back to the 1700s. On April 1, 1700 was the first time the English started playing jokes on one another. It is said a person who gets fooled before midday is called ‘noodle’, ‘gob’, or ‘noddy’. But a person who continues to prank even after midday is called being a fool himself.
In Scotland, the day used to be known as ‘Hunt the Gowk Day’ – Gowk is Scottish for a foolish person. Traditionally, on this day, a fool was sent to deliver a letter with a message, ‘Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile’. The fool would continue to go from door to door until he realized he was being pranked or someone took a pity on him.
In 1957, the otherwise serious news channel, BBC, pulled a prank of its own by showing a family growing spaghetti on a spaghetti tree. Spaghetti was a relatively unknown food product back then, and a lot of people who were smitten with the documentary featuring the tree called the channel to ask where they could find it.
In Denmark, the day is celebrated on May 1 and is referred to as Maj-Kat, meaning May-cat. Iranians play joke on each other on ‘Sizdah De-dar’, which is supposed to be the 13thday of the Persian New Year that is celebrated on April 1 or 2.
In 2002, NASA played the prank of year. NASA posted a picture of the moon on April Fool’s Day proving that it is made of cheese and comes with an expiration date.