TIME is flying and here we are again on April Fools’ Day, but surely people don’t still fall for it all, do they?

 

April Fool!

The custom of playing pranks, hoaxes and practical jokes, only to shout 'April Fools!' to expose the tricks, dates back through the centuries. Its origins remain a true mystery, although the most popular guess involves the reformation of France’s calendar in 1564 to change the start of the year from the end of March to January 1.

 

How so?

Those who couldn’t keep up with the change and stayed true to the old date for celebrating new year, had pranks played on them by hoaxers placing paper fish on their backs and calling them ‘poisson d’Avril’ - April Fish - a term still used in France today.

 

Other theories?

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century The Canterbury Tales, he refers to a fox tricking a rooster on 32 March, which would make it April 1. But it was not until the 1700s that April Fools’ spread throughout Britain, picking up particular traction in Scotland, where it became known as ‘hunting the gowk’ - meaning ‘hunting the fool’, with people sent on pretend errands which continued from house to house.

 

What are some of the most famous pranks in history?

Londoners in 1698 were invited to see the ‘annual washing of the lions’ at the Tower of London in one of the earliest recorded references to an April 1 prank, with the hoax such a hit, it was repeated over the years. An 1856 invite to the non-existent ceremony remains in the tower’s archives.

 

Pasta on trees?

The BBC’s 1957 Panorama, featuring a three-minute film on spaghetti farms in Switzerland where pasta grew on trees, remains one of the most famous April Fools’ Day pranks. The segment said that, due to a mild winter and the “virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil”, the Swiss town of Ticino was enjoying a bumper spaghetti harvest. Hoodwinked viewers rang in the BBC in droves asking for tips on how to grow their own spaghetti. 

 

Any others?

The BBC were at it again in 1980, reporting that Big Ben was going to become a digital clock, with some viewers so shocked by the announcement, they phoned in to complain. Then again on the BBC Sports show Grandstand in 1989, a fight broke out on camera behind presenter Desmond Lynam as he calmly presented the programme seemingly unaware. After a few minutes, the “fighters” held up a sign saying “April Fool”. 

 

Defying gravity?

In an ‘out of this world’ prank back in 1976 on BBC radio 2, astronomer Patrick Moore announced that at 9.47am, the world would feel the ‘Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect’, explaining that the planets would align at that exact moment and gravity on Earth would get slightly weaker, so if you jumped at that precise second, you could almost float. It was April Fool’s nonsense, but thousands of listeners called in to say they'd felt the fall in gravity and one woman even claimed she and 11 friends "wafted from their chairs and orbited gently around the room”.

 

This year?

Dyson has already been forced to deny that its new noise-cancelling headphones - which include a dystopian-looking air-purifying device contained in a visor worn across the mouth - are an April Fool's prank. The British tech firm say the innovative filtration system is designed to help people who live in noisy and polluted cities, but the images of the device raised questions on social media as to whether they may be an April 1st release.