History of April Fools' Day unknown

April Fools' Day has not yet earned the status of an official national holiday, so it is appropriate that it has no official history either.

As stated by the online Museum of Hoaxes, the holiday's origin "remains as much a mystery to us as it was back in 1708," when British journalists were posing questions in the same vein.

In the modern world, the first of April is observed by pulling pranks on friends and neighbors or, if elaborate enough, the wider public. The most plausible theory for our modern holiday's origin is the so-called Calendar-Change Theory. As the Museum of Hoaxes explains, the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar took place in 1582. Holdovers in France who insisted on celebrating the New Year around April 1 were tormented with pranks by their countrymen. But the Museum of Hoaxes deems this a "problematic explanation" because of the gradual shift between the calendars.

The creativity of April Fool's pranks has evolved considerably since then.

Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out