April Fool's Day (01/04)

April Fools' Day or All Fool's Day — is an international holiday celebrated around the world on April 1st. On this day, it is customary to prank relatives, friends and acquaintances, or make fun of them.

Where exactly this holiday comes from — from France, England, Mexico or Sweden — is a mystery that, unfortunately, is shrouded in darkness. One of the influential versions about the emergence of the holiday of laughter is associated with the fact that April 1 was initially celebrated in many countries as the day of the spring equinox and the time of Easter. Celebrations on the occasion of the spring New Year were always accompanied by jokes, pranks and funny tricks. The tradition of the holiday still lives on: the reason was nature itself, because people tried to appease the spring whims of the weather with jokes and pranks.

Another, also common, version of the origin of April Fool's Day is associated with the transition to the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582. The fact is that the New Year in the Middle Ages was celebrated not on January 1, but at the end of March, before King Charles IX reformed the calendar in France in 1563—1564. Therefore, New Year's week began on March 25 and ended on April 1.

In those distant times, it was also customary to have fun during the New Year holidays. But despite changes in the calendar, some conservative (and perhaps simply ignorant) people continued to celebrate New Year's week according to the old style. Others laughed and made fun of them, presented «durak» gifts and called them April's Fools. This is how the so-called «Day of Laughter» arose.

In the 18th century, this fun holiday became widely known and popular. The English, Scots and French spread it to their American colonies. On April Fool's Day, it was customary to make fun of each other, as well as give each other meaningless assignments, for example, finding and bringing sweet vinegar.

April Fool's jokes are extremely varied and cover wide sections of both those who joke and those who are joked about. The most famous April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time are already classified in the list of 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time, including: the fall of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a photo report about flying penguins, a UFO landing in London, a transition to a decimal time system, a change in Pi from 3.14 to 3.0 and others.



• Infographics – poster «1 April — April Fool's Day» • Article «Four April Fools' pranks that ended not funny» • Story «How to celebrate April Fool's Day? Joke with Alice from Yandex!»

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