April Fools’ Day Is In The Near Future

 April 1 is Fool’s Day, and boy do I remember the pranks we did when I was younger. 

Who came up with this celebration?

A disputed association between 1 April and foolishness is in Geoffrey Chaucer‘s The Canterbury Tales (1392).^[3] In the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale.

Here is how a few countries around the globe celebrate April Fools 

Italy, France, Belgium, and French-speaking areas of Switzerland and Canada

In Italy, France, Belgium and French-speaking areas of Switzerland and Canada, the 1 April tradition is often known as “April fish” (poisson d’avril in French, april vis in Dutch or pesce d’aprile in Italian). Possible pranks include attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim’s back without being noticed. This fish feature is prominently present on many late 19th- to early 20th-century French April Fools’ Day postcards. Many newspapers also spread a false story on April Fish Day, and a subtle reference to a fish is sometimes given as a clue to the fact that it is an April Fools’ prank.^{[citation needed]} Boulangeries, pâtisseries and chocolatiers in France sell chocolate fishes in their shop windows on the day.^[20]

Poland (Prima aprilis)

In Poland, prima April (“First April” in Latin) as a day of pranks is a centuries-long tradition. It is a day when many pranks are played: sometimes very sophisticated hoaxes are prepared by people, media (which often cooperate to make the “information” more credible), and even public institutions. Serious activities are usually avoided; every word said on 1 April could be untrue. The conviction for this is so strong that the Polish anti-Turkish alliance with Leopold I, signed on 1 April 1683, was backdated to 31 March.^[22] However, for some in Poland prima April ends at noon of 1 April and prima April jokes after that hour are considered inappropriate and not classy.

A common prank is to carefully remove the cream from an Oreo and replace it with toothpaste, and there are many similar pranks that replace an object (usually food) with another object that looks like the object but tastes different such as replacing sugar with salt and vanilla frosting with sour cream. As well as people playing pranks on one another on April Fools’ Day, elaborate pranks have appeared on radio and television stations, newspapers, and websites, and have been performed by large corporations. In one famous prank in 1957, the BBC broadcast a film in their Panorama current affairs series purporting to show Swiss farmers picking freshly-grown spaghetti, in what they called the Swiss spaghetti harvest. The BBC was soon flooded with requests to purchase a spaghetti plant, forcing them to declare the film a hoax on the news the next day.^[31]

I love how the celebrations are so interesting. 

Melinda

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day