April Fool’s Day is the biggest April Fool’s joke of all
Mom’s corner
I am sorry I was unable to share with you the last couple of weeks, but we had a family emergency that required my attention. As I began to think about this week’s article, I noticed April Fools’ Day was just around the corner. I began to wonder just when April Fools’ Day started.
Well, here’s the real joke: No one really knows. Some think it started when Pope Gregory XII ordered a new calendar in 1582 and changed the start of the new year from April 1 to January 1. It took several years for everyone to find out and those who continued to celebrate on April 1 were targets of jokes.
However, this theory doesn’t quite work because there are references to April Fool’s Day pranks and jokes prior to the calendar change as early as the fourth century. Professor Joseph Boskin at Boston University offered the explanation that during the reign of Constantine a group of court jesters said they could do a better job of running the Roman Empire. So Emperor Constantine allowed them to do so for a day and the court jesters passed an edict calling for people to do absurd things and it became an annual event. Sounds good, right? The Associated Press thought it did too and published an article on it. Only one problem, Professor Boskin made the whole thing up! In reality, there seems to be no plausible explanation, especially considering that many other cultures from all over the world celebrate a day of jokes and pranks.
Obviously, this is not just an individual or family oriented day, there have been huge pranks intended to fool the general public. In 1998, Burger King told patrons that they had created a left-handed whopper. Yes, people fell for it. Also in 1998 the newsletter, New Mexicans for Science and Reason announced that Alabama had changed the value of pi from 3.14159 to the “Biblical value” of 3. Some of the pranks, such as the “War of the Worlds” prank by CBS radio and H. G. Wells, have created a serious amount of panic. Never-theless, pranks by the media have continued. It makes me wonder what will be next.
Perhaps the biggest practical joke is the one that is still going on after centuries is April Fool’s Day itself.
