It was an ordinary day. Reading a section of my latest Bulletins titled FOOLISH HISTORY. Thought I just had to share the "Witty & Wise" paragraphs with you since I couldn't see what was witty or wise in most of them. So...if you too think they aren't real funny...well, I'll feel a bit better!! Now...if you think all of the following are hilarious...well...I'm in trouble!! So...here goes.....
FOOLISH HISTORY - April Fools' Day dates back over 400 years; it's even older than Thanksgiving (true! no joke!). Which means there have been lots of chances for good mischief. Here's a history of the day.
#1 - 1582 - FOOL'S GOLD - In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar, moving the start of the new year to January from April. Those who kept celebrating the old new year were ridiculed as "April fools," which led to a new unofficial holiday, historians suggest.
#2 - 1698 - A WILD START - The first documented April Fools' prank took place in London. A clever Brit announced a special event at the Tower of London: "See the Lions washed." No such public cleansing of jungle cats was planned, but the announcement drew a crowd of rubes.
#3 - 1796 - NEW JOKES IN THE NEW WORLD - The earliest recorded American April fools' prank took place in Middletown, Connecticut, where a handbill promised a marketplace for "fool's coats." It said sellers should bring coats of various colors, yellow to "predominate," with lots of tin bells and tassels.
#4 - 1974 - AN EXPLOSIVE PRANK - When residents of Sitka, Alaska, awoke to see smoke rising from Mount Edgecumbe, officials responded to a possible volcanic eruption. But really, a group of people had piled hundreds of tires and greasy rags in the crater and set them on fire--and spray-painted "APRIL FOOL" on the snow.
#5 - 1980 - A NEW MEANING OF HAT HAIR - The magazine of the British army reported that its guards' fur helmets needed trimming because the bear pelts were so thick that the hair continued to grow. The London Daily Express reprinted the prank story as fact -- perhaps because it suggested a bear hormone could be a baldness cure.
#6 - 1983 - SOME META MISCHIEF - When an Associated Press reporter asked Boston University history professor Joseph Baskin about the origins of April Fools' Day, he jokingly cited a fictitious King Kugel - the name inspired by a noodle dish. He was shocked that the reporter had run the gag as fact.
#7 - 1985 - A FALSE PITCH - A pitcher who can hurl a baseball at 168 mph? That's what writer George Plimpton claimed about supposed New York Mets prospect Sidd Finch in Sports Illustrated. Fans fell for the gag, which some called the greatest April fools' prank in sports history. Really??
#8 - 2001 - A GROUNDBREAKING HOAX - For earth-shattering impact, few pranksters can beat the British DJs who said a replica Titanic could be seen from the cliffs of Beachy Head, in East Sussex. Crowds flocked to view the made-up ship, and part of the fragile cliffs cracked-then later crumbled. ***Now that one is half-funny!!
I'm hoping that most of you didn't laugh out loud after reading every one the #1 thru #7 "witty and wise sentences." If you think they are hilarious...or just funny...I need to rethink what I think is funny, since what I think is funny isn't anything like these "witty & wise" ones!!! Maybe cute, but not all-out laughable! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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