Have you ever wondered what April Fool’s Day is all about? On April 1st each year, people around the world pull ‘harmless’ pranks and jokes on each other. This tradition dates all the way back to the 14th century, with history showing that even noblemen hundreds of years ago used to send their servants on silly errands on April 1st! Nowadays, even some newspapers and magazines will publish silly fake news stories, but have to tell everyone the next day that they are, in fact, not true. Let’s take a look at some of the funniest traditions from around the world.
In the United Kingdom, people shout “April Fool!” to reveal their prank, usually once it has been discovered. One of the most famous pranks was in 1957, when the BBC played a fake documentary film called the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest, which showed farmers picking “freshly grown spaghetti”. This resulted in many people calling in to find out where they could purchase a “spaghetti plant”, forcing the BBC to explain that it was actually just an April Fool’s joke.
People in Ireland traditionally prank each other by asking someone to deliver an important letter. When the letter is opened, it says “Send the fool further”, encouraging the person reading it to send the messenger to someone else who will perform the same routine until either someone takes pity on the messenger or he looks at the message himself.
In France and Italy, April Fool’s is called April Fish (Poisson d’Avril or Pesce d’Aprile). It’s named this because the tradition in these places is to prank your friends and family by taping a paper fish to their backs without the person realising. The person then walks around looking like a fool until someone else points it out.
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