Servpro of Western Lehigh County

April Fools' Day!!

HOW TO OBSERVE

Prepare your best pranks and practical jokes. Use #AprilFools'Day to post on social media.

HISTORY

We would be fools to think we knew precisely when April Fools' Day was originally celebrated.

April Fools Day shares similarities with other days full of fools, tricks and merry making.

Some believe the day is celebrated in honor of the trickery Mother Nature plays on us this time of year with her unpredictable weather.

The Indian tradition of Holi which is celebrated on March 31st has the same foolery as April Fools' day as does the Roman festival of Hilaria which was celebrated on March 25th.

The earliest known reference to April Fools' day is in Chaucer's 1392 Nun's Priest's Tale. Even so, the reference is so vague, and possibly not even occurring on the first of April, leaving doubt as to whether or not it is actually the first reference.

Other scholars point to the reformation of the calendar by Pope Gregory and the Gregorian calendar we used today in the 1500s in France. The new year would take place in April, not January as it does now. The theory is that those who continued to celebrate the new year on April 1 were called Poisson d'Avril (April fish) and pranks would be played on them.

In 1582, France accepted the Gregorian calendar, but reforms had already been taking place.

In Britain in 1776, there is clear and solid reference to April foolishness in an article in Gentlemans Magazine. Reference to a custom in the kingdom of making fools of people on the first day of April. It addresses the day being the culmination of an eight-day feast and the beginning of a new year.

Newspapers, television, radio and social media have had their fun on April Fools' Day. Check out all this April 1 foolishness:

• Times of London reported in 1992 that Belgium was negotiating to join Holland.
• The Evening Star of Islington advertised in 1864 a display of donkeys at the Agricultural Hall the next day. Those who arrived early soon realized who the donkeys on display really were.
• In 1950, The Progress in Clearfield Pennsylvania published a picture of a UFO flying over the town. Claiming to have "scooped" larger publications of the first ever published picture of a real flying saucer.
• In 2008, the BBC presented a documentary on flying penguins.

From the National Day Calendar (http://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/days-2/april-fools-day-april-1/)