April Fool’s Day celebrated on April 1st each year has been celebrated for centuries by different cultures and countries, through its exact origin of the day remains a mystery. The day consists of playing practical jokes and pranks on each other and yelling “April Fools” at the end. The day is not an official holiday except in Odessa in Ukraine, where April Fool’s Day is an official city holiday.
Many believe the day began on April 1st 1700, when English pranksters began the tradition by playing practical jokes on each other. Some historians date the tradition back even further to 1582 but the officially date is unknown.
In modern times, people have gone through great lengths to create and prank people on April Fool’s Day. Even newspapers, radios, tv stations, and website have all participated in some of the greatest hoaxes throughout the years.
Some of the greatest April Fool’s Day pranks in history include:
1957, The BBC reported that Swiss farmers were experiencing a record spaghetti crop and showed footage of people harvesting noodles from trees.
1996, Taco Bell, the fast-food chain, tricked people into believing the company was going to purchase The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and rename it the Taco Liberty Bell.
1998, Burger King, the fast-food chain advertised a Left-Handed Whooper and many requested the fake sandwiches that day.
2014, Google published a Pokeman game in which players could use Google Maps to look for and catch Pikachus and Bulbasaurs, who would pop up on the screen for gamers to grab. The game was fake and eventually lead software engineers to create the game Pokemon Go in 2016.
