1st April: April Fools’ Day

April Fools’ Day on April 1st has long been a day when practical jokes and tricks are played on the unaware. It’s a time when children convince their parents they’ve broken a bone. Parents get in on the planning, too. Classic April Fools’ jokes include caramel-covered onions or fake doggy doo-doo in inconvenient places. Businesses launch impractical or unbelievable products for the fun of the day and newspapers print incredible headlines catching readers off guard.

April 1 is a day for practical jokes in many countries around the world. The simplest jokes may involve children who tell each other that their shoelaces are undone and then cry out “April Fool!” when the victims glance at their feet
Of course, the trick to a good April Fools’ prank is planning. And you also need to be the first to pull it off. There’s no point in pursuing your prank if someone else beats you to it. Once the foolery has been triggered, everyone else will be on high alert and the element of surprise will be lost.

In 2002, British supermarket chain Tesco published an advertisement in The Sun, announcing a genetically modified ‘whistling carrot. The ad explained that the carrots were engineered to grow with tapered air holes in their side. When fully cooked, these holes would cause the carrot to whistle.

In the early 1960s, there was only one television channel in Sweden, broadcast in black and white. As an April Fool’s joke, it was announced on the news that viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception by pulling a nylon stocking over their screen.

In 1934, many American newspapers, including The New York Times, printed a photograph of a man flying through the air, supported by a device powered only by the breath from his lungs. Accompanying articles excitedly described this miraculous new invention.