It was an ordinary day. That was until I realized it was April 1, or "April Fools Day." Grabbed my MacBook Air and began a search to find how all this nonsense began years ago. Seems that historians believe the April fools' customs began in France when they moved New Year's Day from April 1 to January 1 when the Gregorian calendar was adopted. Those who decided to continue to celebrate New Year's Day on April 1 rather than the new date of January 1st were referred to as "April fools" and others played tricks on them. After I read that I was totally amazed that I had never heard that explanation before in my lifetime. As I read on I found that April 1st is called "Poisson d'Avril and French children enjoy fooling their friends by taping a paper fish to their friend's backs and when the friend discovers the paper fish, the prankster yells "Poisson d'Avril!" As for other countries...Scotland's April Fools' lasts two days and during the first day the victims of pranks are called gowks which means cuckoo birds. Second day pranks involve placing "kick me" signs on the rear of the person. In England and Canada, pranks are played on unsuspecting people in the morning of April 1st. As far as memorable pranks from the past, in the early 1950's the BBC ran a "news" story about the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. Get it! Took me a while to get it! Other pranks that were associated with April 1 were:
1985 - Sports Illustrated ran a story about a Mets pitchier named Sidd Finch. The skinny Finch could throw a 168-mph fastball which he credits to meditations in tibet and carrying a French horn at all times as well as wearing one hiking boot while pitching. How many believed that one.
1996 - Taco Bell ran a full-page advertisement in major newspapers telling everyone that it had purchased the Liberty Bell and is renaming it the "Taco Liberty Bell." They would probably do that if they could.
2004 - The National Public Radio show called "All Things Considered" ran a story about the Postal Service starting a "portable zip code" program where people who moved could keep the zip code they had at their old address if they wanted. It would be a citizen's place in the demographic, rather than a geographic location.
2008 - The BBC showed a video of flying penguins explaining that they could now escape the cold weather by flying to the tropical rainforests of South America.
2013 - The Guardian announced a device to be known as "Guardian Googles" that will stream its journalism directly into the wearer's visual field, enabling users to see the world through the Guardian's eyes at all times.
2016 - Google introduced "Mic Drop." It is a Gmail feature that enables users to send emails with an animated gif depicting a minion dropping a micronphone. The prank went awry when people accidentally clicked on the button and unwittingly sent business emails with animation. The feature was removed a short time later.
The last story I read was from 2010 when online retailer Think Geek announced canned unicorn meat. More than likely most people knew it was a joke, but for those that ordered it, well, they got a stuffed unicorn toy inside a can. Seemed funny until customers in Germany complained they weren't getting their orders. The reason they didn't get their orders was they were halted by German customs official who apparently believed that unicorns were real and had therefore decided that the product fell afoul of regulations banning the importation of meat from "rare" animals. Now that has to be the best April Fool's joke ever. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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