While not strictly a national day with specific planned events, April Fools Day has been a fixed day of mischief for centuries in most of the western world. However, no-one has a clear reason to why or how the practice got started. Here are three out of the hundreds of possible theories:
Theory 1: Calendar All Change
Before the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar that we recognise today, New Year’s was celebrated around the arrival of spring (towards the end of March, beginning of April).
The changes to New Year occurred around 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, however not everyone immediately adopted the new date and the term an ‘April Fool’ was born, with the followers being sent on fool’s errands or fed false news for a day.
Theory 2: Thanks for all the fish
In countries, such as France, Holland, Italy and Belgium, the 1stof April is better known as April Fish Day or poisson d’avril, april vis or pesce d’aprile. The idea possibly stems from around the 1500s and possibly has something to do with the arrival of enough fish returning to the river to allow for the fishing season to begin.
A common practice in France (especially for children) is to try and stealthy attach paper fish to the backs of their fellow friends, family and classmates and see how long it would make them notice. Once the paper fish is discovered the phrase
Theory 3: A Publisher’s Typo
The English poet Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14thCentury wrote a poem about a fox attempting to trick a rooster in roughly 32 days “syn March bigan” roughly translating as 32 days from March. The majority of readers took this as 32 days from the 1stof March making April 1stas the day the prank occurred and began copying the act of trickery for the day.
However, many now believe that this sentence was in part a publisher’s mistake and the line should have read “syn March gon” and it was supposed to have meant 32 days after March making the day of the event in May.
