April Fools Day

April Fools' Day

All Fools' Day, although not a Festival in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, enemies, and neighbors, or sending them on fool's errand, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible. Traditionally, in some countries, the jokes only last until noon: someone who plays a trick after noon is called an "April Fool".  Another origin is that April 1 was counted the first day of the year in France. When King Charles IX changed that to January 1, some people stayed with April 1. Those who did were called "April Fools" and were taunted by their neighbors.

Any how the quest of origin and the date from which the day is being celebrated is still haunting to many today. The origin of April Fools' Day is obscure. One likely theory is that the modern holiday was first celebrated soon after the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar; the term referred to someone still adhering to the Julian Calendar which it replaced. In many pre-Christian cultures May Day (May 1) was celebrated as the first day of summer, and signalled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool was someone who did this prematurely.

Almost every culture in the world has some kind of festival in the first months of the year to celebrate the end of winter and the return of spring. Anthropologists call these “renewal festivals.“ Often they involve ritualized forms of mayhem and misrule. The wearing of disguises is common. People play pranks on friends and strangers.

April Fool’s Day has all the characteristics of a renewal festival. For one day forms of behavior that are normally not allowed (lying, deception, and playing pranks) become acceptable, and yet the disorder is bounded within a strict timeframe. Traditionally, no pranks are supposed to be played after 12 o’clock noon of the first. Social hierarchies and tensions are exposed, but hostility is defused with laughter.

For as long as people have been speculating about April Fool’s Day, they have noticed the similarities between it and other springtime “renewal” festivals. Many historians have theorized that April Fool’s Day evolved directly out of some such festival practiced in ancient times. A direct connection between April Fool’s Day and any of the Roman-era festivals seems unlikely, though it is quite possible that the tradition evolved out of a medieval festival held around the time of the Vernal equinox (such as the New Year’s festivals at the end of March, as discussed above). Nevertheless, there is no agreement about which festival the tradition of April Foolery developed out of. Below is a list of some of the festivals that have most frequently been suggested as its forerunners.

References to April fool’s Day can be found as early as the 1500s. However, these early references were infrequent and tended to be vague and ambiguous. Many theories have been put forward about how the tradition began. Unfortunately, none of them are very compelling. So the origin of the “custom of making April Fools” remains as much a mystery to us as it was back in 1708.

 The most popular theory about the origin of April fool’s Day involves the French calendar reform of the sixteenth century. The theory goes like this:

French calendar reform

 In 1564 France reformed its calendar, moving the start of the year from the end of March to January 1. Those who failed to keep up with the change, who stubbornly clung to the old calendar system and continued to celebrate the New Year during the week that fell between March 25th and April 1st, had jokes played on them. Pranksters would surreptitiously stick paper fish to their backs. The victims of this prank were thus called Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish—which, to this day, remains the French term for April Fools—and so the tradition was born.

The calendar-change hypothesis seems, on the surface, like a logical explanation for the origin of April Fools. However, the hypothesis becomes less plausible if we examine the history of calendar reform in more detail.

The Julian calendar

The Julian Calendar, established by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, made January 1 the first day of the year. But as Christianity spread throughout Europe, efforts were made to christianize the calendar by moving New Year’s Day to dates of greater theological significance, such as Christmas or Easter. Some countries continued to use January 1, justifying this as the date of Christ’s circumcision. As a consequence, by the 1500s the European calendar system was a mess. Not only had errors in the Julian calendar caused the solar year to diverge from the calendar year, but also countries were beginning the year on different dates.

Moreover, the French used Easter as the start of the year primarily for legal and administrative purposes. January 1, following the Roman custom, was widely regarded as the traditional start of the year, and it was the day when people exchanged gifts.

Sixteenth-Century Reform

The practice of starting the year on Easter Day caused enormous practical inconvenience, so around 1500 many people in France began to use January 1 as the start of the calendar year. For instance, in early sixteenth-century French books, it is common to see both forms of dating listed side-by-side (for titles published in January, February, or March). By the mid-sixteenth century, a calendar system beginning on January 1 was in wide use in France. In 1563 King Charles IX decreed January 1 to be the first day of the year, thus aligning legal convention with what had become the popular practice. His edict was passed into law by the French Parliament on Dec. 22, 1564.

Eighteen years later, in 1582, Pope Gregory issued a papal bull decreeing sweeping calendar reform. The Gregorian reform included moving the start of the year to January 1, as well as creating a leap-year system and eliminating ten days from the month of October 1582 in order to correct the drift of the calendar. The Pope had no formal power to make governments accept this reform, but he urged Christian nations to do so. France immediately accepted the reform, although it had already changed the start of the year in 1564. (Many histories of April Fool’s Day mistakenly suggest that France only moved the start of the year in 1582 when it accepted the Gregorian calendar reform in its entirety.)

With this history in mind, it becomes clear that the calendar-change hypothesis is a problematic explanation for the origin of April Fool’s Day. The switch to January 1 did not occur suddenly in France. It was a gradual process, spanning an entire century. And even before the switch, the French New Year had no obvious connection to April 1st.

British Calendar Change

The calendar-change hypothesis is more plausible if applied to Britain, because it was the British, not the French, who observed New Year’s Day on March 25 (the date of the christian Feast of Annunciation), followed by a week of festivities culminating on April 1. In fact, the earliest version of the calendar-change hypothesis to be found in print, dating from 1766, does place the argument in a British context. As reported by a  correspondent to the Gentleman’s Magazine in April 1766 :

“The strange custom prevalent throughout this kingdom, of people making fools of one another upon the first of April, arose from the year formerly beginning, as to some purpose, and in some respects, on the twenty-fifth of March, which was supposed to be the incarnation of our Lord; it being customary with the Romans, as well as with us, to hold a festival, attended by an octave, at the commencement of the new year—which festival lasted for eight days, whereof the first and last were the principal; therefore the first of April is the octave of the twenty-fifth of March, and, consequently, the close or ending of the feast, which was both the festival of the Annunciation and the beginning of the new year.“

Britain only changed the start of its calendar year to January 1 in 1752. By this time April Fool’s Day was already a well-established tradition. So confusion about the calendar change could not have been responsible for the origin of the custom in Britain. But it is possible, as the correspondent to Gentleman’s Magazine speculated, that the festival held on April 1 (the “octave” of the March 25th calendar year change) evolved into April Fool’s Day. However, this is pure speculation, undermined by the lack of any other compelling evidence that the custom originated in Britain. The earliest unambiguous references to April Fool’s Day actually come from continental Europe, suggesting it is there that April Fool’s Day began.

Great Britain

British folklore links April Fool’s Day to the town of Gotham, the legendary town of fools located in Nottinghamshire. According to the legend, it was traditional in the 13th century for any road that the King placed his foot upon to become public property. So when the citizens of Gotham heard that King John planned to travel through their town, they refused him entry, not wishing to lose their main road. When the King heard this, he sent soldiers to the town. But when the soldiers arrived in Gotham, they found the town full of lunatics engaged in foolish activities such as drowning fish or attempting to cage birds in roofless fences. Their foolery was all an act, but the King fell for the ruse and declared the town too foolish to warrant punishment. Ever since then, according to legend, April Fool’s Day has commemorated their trickery.

Germany

On April 1, 1530 a meeting of lawmakers was supposed to occur in Augsburg in order to consider various financial matters. Because of time considerations, the meeting did not take place. But numerous speculators, who had bet on the meeting occurring, lost their money and were ridiculed. This is said to have been the origin of the tradition of playing pranks on April 1.

The Netherlands

On April 1, 1572 Dutch rebels captured the town of Den Briel from Spanish troops led by Lord Alva. This military success eventually led to the independence of the Netherlands from Spain. A Dutch rhyme goes: “Op 1 april / Verloor Alva zijn Bril.“ This translates to: “On April 1st / Alva lost his ‘glasses’”. “Bril” means glasses in Dutch, but is also a pun on the name of the town, Den Briel. It is claimed that the tradition of pranks on April 1st arose to commemorate the victory in Den Briel and humiliation of the Spanish commander

Chaucer

What is possibly the first reference to April Fool’s Day can be found in the work of Chaucer. Unfortunately, the reference is so ambiguous as to be worthless as historical evidence.

In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale (written around 1392), Chaucer tells the story of the vain cock Chauntecler who falls for the tricks of a fox, and as a consequence is almost eaten. Whatever Chaucer may have meant, we can’t conclude, based on these few lines, that he was aware of a custom of playing pranks on April 1st.

 Eloy d’Amerval

The next possible reference to April Fool’s Day we find is in a 1508 poem written by Eloy d’Amerval, a French choirmaster and composer. The poem is titled Le livre de la deablerie. In this poem he made the use of  phrase “poisson d’avril” (April Fish) is the French term for an April Fool, but it is unclear whether d’Amerval’s use of the term referred to April 1st specifically. He might have intended the phrase simply to mean a foolish person.

Eduard de Dene

The Flemish writer Eduard De Dene published a comical poem in 1539 about a nobleman who hatches a plan to send his servant back and forth on absurd errands on April 1st, supposedly to help prepare for a wedding feast. The servant recognizes that what’s being done to him is an April 1st joke

Escape of the Duke of Lorraine

According to legend, the Duke of Lorraine and his wife were imprisoned at Nantes. They escaped on April 1, 1632 by disguising themselves as peasants and walking through the front gate. Someone noticed them escaping and told the guards. But the guards believed the warning to be a “poisson d’Avril” (or April Fool’s Day joke) and laughed at it, thus allowing the Duke and his wife to escape. It is not known if any part of this legend is true. In the eighteenth century written references to April Fool’s Day became numerous and appeared throughout Europe.

At last, what we have here is a fairly clear reference to a custom of playing practical jokes on April 1st. So we can say that April Fool’s Day dates back at least to the sixteenth century. Because of this reference (and the other, vague French reference), historians believe that April Fool’s Day must have originated in continental northern Europe and then spread to Britain.

The April Fools is full of hoaxes, humor, laughter and enjoyment. The frequency of April Fools' hoaxes sometimes makes people doubt of real news. Here are some of the real news of april 1st which people took as hoaxes.

• The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Island earthquake tsunami that killed 165 people in Hawaii and Alaska resulted in the creation of a tsunami warning system established in 1949 for Pacific Ocean countries. The tsunami in question is known in Hawaii as the "April Fools' Day Tsunami" due to people drowning because of the assumptions that the warnings were an April Fools' prank.
• The death of King George II of Greece on April 1, 1947 when the news spread people took it as hoax..
• On April 1, 1984, singer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father. Originally, people assumed that it was a fake news story, especially considering the bizarre aspect of the father being the murderer
• The 2005 death of comedian Mitch Hedberg was originally dismissed as an April Fools' joke. The comedian's March 29, 2005 death was announced on March 31, but many newspapers didn't carry the story until April 1, 2005.
• The merger of Square and its rival company, Enix, took place on April 1, 2003, and was originally thought to be a joke.
• The announcement of the anime version of the Powerpuff Girls, Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z, was on April Fools' Day causing many to think it was a joke.
• The game Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was announced only a couple days before April Fools' Day. Forums were flooded because so many thought that the two rivals since the 90's, Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, appearing together in a video game as an official 2008 Olympics game was a joke.
• British sprinter Dwain Chambers joined English rugby league team Castleford Tigers shortly before 1st April 2008. The athlete was attempting a return to top flight athletics at the time following a high profile drugs ban, and his apparent unfamiliarity with rugby led many people to assume this was an April Fools' Day prank.
• On April 1st, 2008, it was reported that UEFA would require the Swedish fast food chain Max to close their restaurant at the Borås Arena during the European Under-21 Football Championship due to a conflict with official sponsor McDonalds and a requirement that only official sponsors may operate around the arena. The arena was later replaced as a tournament site.
• On April 1, 1984, singer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father. Originally, people assumed that it was a fake news story, especially considering the bizarre aspect of the father being the murderer.
• On April 1, 2008, Christian Persch announced that the GNOME desktop web browser Epiphany would be switched from Mozilla's Gecko engine to the WebKit engine used by Safari and KDE's equivalent application Konqueror.

     Dr. Ashhiq Hussain

Lect. Govt. Degree College Kishtwar

E.mail:- drashiqhussain@rediffmail.com

About the Author

Bhalessa, Dr. Ashiq

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