April Fools’ Day — celebrated on April 1 every year — has been celebrated for centuries by different cultures. The exact history of the day is “shrouded in mystery,” but because so many people have embraced April Fools’ Day jokes, the day has had a long life.
Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day began when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. In the Julian calendar, as in the Hindu calendar, the new year began with the spring equinox around April 1. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called “April fools.”
Other historians have linked April Fools’ Day to festivals such as Hilaria (Latin for joyful,) which was celebrated in ancient Rome at the end of March. It involved people dressing up in disguises and mocking fellow citizens and even magistrates and was said to be inspired by the Egyptian legend of Isis, Osiris and Seth.
Another school of thought is that April Fools’ Day was tied to the vernal equinox — the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, when Mother Nature fools people with changing, unpredictable weather.
In modern times, people have gone to great lengths to create elaborate April Fools’ Day hoaxes. Newspapers, radio and TV stations and websites have participated in the April 1 tradition of reporting outrageous fictional claims that have fooled their audiences.
In 1749 London newspapers advertised that in an upcoming show, a man would squeeze his entire body into a wine bottle and then sing while inside it. The ad promised that, “during his stay in the bottle, any person may handle it, and see plainly that it does not exceed a common Tavern Bottle.” The ad promised the show would feature other tricks as well, including communicating with the dead. Legend has it that the ad was the result of a bet between the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Chesterfield. Reportedly, the duke bet that he could advertise something impossible and still “find fools enough in London to fill a playhouse and pay handsomely for the privilege of being there.” And apparently he was right — the night of the show, every seat in the house was filled, but no performer ever showed up. Realizing they had been duped, the audience rioted.
While not exactly an April Fools’ joke, but a prank that I remember from when it happened comes to mind…. in 1959, students in Sãn Paulo, Brazil, who were tired of the city’s overflowing sewers and inflated prices launched a campaign to elect a rhinoceros to the city council — and won. The rhino’s name was Cacareco (Portuguese for “rubbish,”) and she was already a popular figure in Sãn Paulo when the students launched her campaign. The four-year old rhino had moved to the city from Rio de Janeiro when Sãn Paulo’s zoo opened, and was scheduled to return to Rio soon. When the students looked at the 540 candidates vying for Sãn Paulo’s 45 council seats and feared that none of them would address the city’s problems, they decided to make a point by asking people to vote for the popular rhino instead. Cacareco won a city council seat with a whopping 100,000 votes, far more than any other candidate. Of course, she didn’t end up serving on the city council because the election board disqualified her. But she remains one of the most famous protest votes in Brazilian history.
In 1998, in a full-page advertisement in USA Today, Burger King unveiled a new menu item specifically engineered for southpaws — the Left-Handed Whopper. According to the fast food chain, the burger’s condiments were rotated 180 degrees to better suit the 1.4 million lefties who patronized its restaurants. Thousand of customers requested the new burger — believing this whopper about Burger King’s Whopper.
Apparently Lincoln was right — you can fool some of the people all of the time. Pay attention to what you read and hear today…..
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