April Fools’ Day

The holiday might trace back to a massive calendar mix-up. In the late sixteenth century, France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, moving the new year from April to January. People who failed to get the news and kept celebrating the new year in spring became known as April fools.

The French stick fish on people’s backs. In France, the holiday is called Poisson d’Avril, which translates to April Fish. It is a long-standing tradition for children to secretly tape paper fish to the backs of their unsuspecting friends and teachers.

A prankster faked a massive volcanic eruption. In 1974, residents of Sitka, Alaska, woke up to see black smoke billowing from the dormant Mount Edgecumbe volcano. A local man had actually flown hundreds of old tires into the crater and set them on fire, spray-painting the words April Fool in the snow beside it.

Richard Nixon supposedly ran for president again. In 1992, National Public Radio aired a segment featuring a spot-on impersonator claiming Richard Nixon was launching a new presidential campaign. His fake campaign slogan was literally that he had not done anything wrong and would not do it again.

Burger King invented a burger for left-handed eaters. In 1998, the burger giant published a full-page advertisement for a new Left-Handed Whopper, claiming all the condiments were rotated exactly 180 degrees so they would drip less for left-handed customers. Thousands of people showed up at restaurants specifically requesting the new sandwich.

Gmail sounded way too good to be true. When Google officially launched its email service on April 1, 2004, offering a massive one gigabyte of free storage, everyone assumed it was just another one of their famous corporate pranks. At the time, competitors were only offering a fraction of a megabyte.

A Swedish news expert told people to put stockings over their televisions. In 1962, Sweden only had one black and white television channel. A technical expert went on the news and told viewers they could convert their screens to color simply by pulling a pair of nylon tights over the glass. Thousands of people actually tried it.

The BBC once convinced viewers that spaghetti grew on trees. In 1957, a respected news program broadcast a short segment showing Swiss farmers harvesting long strands of pasta directly from trees. Hundreds of viewers actually called in asking how to cultivate their own spaghetti plants.

The BBC angered the British public by turning Big Ben digital. In 1980, the overseas news service announced that the iconic Big Ben clock tower was getting a modern update with a digital display. They even offered the old clock hands to the first listeners to call in, which caused a massive uproar.

Scotland used to celebrate for two whole days. Historically, the Scottish people celebrated the holiday over a 48-hour period. The second day was known as Tailie Day, which was dedicated entirely to pranks involving the backside, like pinning fake tails or kick me signs onto people.

Flying penguins fooled wildlife lovers. In 2008, the BBC released incredible, high-quality documentary footage of a colony of Adelie penguins taking flight and migrating to the Amazon rainforest. They actually hired the animation team behind Doctor Who to create the incredibly convincing video.

Taco Bell once claimed they bought a piece of American history. In 1996, the fast-food chain took out full-page newspaper ads announcing they had purchased the Liberty Bell to help the national debt and were renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Outraged citizens flooded the National Park Service with calls until the company admitted it was a joke at noon.

People used to receive fake invitations to wash the lions. Back in the nineteenth century, London pranksters would hand out highly official-looking tickets inviting naive visitors to the Tower of London to watch the annual washing of the white lions, an event that completely did not exist.

Google once claimed they could read your mind. In the year 2000, Google launched its very first April Fools prank called MentalPlex. They asked users to stare deeply into a swirling GIF on the screen and project a mental image of what they wanted to search for.

Not everyone celebrates in April. While Americans and Europeans love their spring pranks, many Latin American countries celebrate a very similar day of practical jokes called the Day of the Holy Innocents, which actually takes place in late December.