April Fools Day Fun Facts!
- April Fools’ Day (sometimes called All Fools’ Day) is celebrated every year on April 1st by playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes.
- The jokes and their victims are called April fools.
- People playing April Fool jokes expose their prank by shouting April Fool.
- Some newspapers, magazines, and other published media report fake stories, which are usually explained the next day or below the news section in small letters.
- Although popular since the 19th century, the day is not a public holiday in any country.
- Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1392) contains the first recorded association between April 1st and foolishness.
- The custom of setting aside a day for the playing of harmless pranks upon one’s neighbor is recognized everywhere.
- Some precursors of April Fools’ Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria, the Holi festival of India, and the Medieval Feast of Fools.
- In 1508, French poet Eloy d’Amerval referred to a poisson d’avril (April fool, literally “April fish”), a possible reference to the holiday. In 1539, Flemish poet Eduard de Dene wrote of a nobleman who sent his servants on foolish errands on April 1st. In 1686, John Aubrey referred to the holiday as “Fooles holy day”, the first British reference. On April 1, 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to “see the Lions washed”.
- In the Middle Ages, New Year’s Day was celebrated on March 25th in most European towns. In some areas of France, New Year’s was a week-long holiday ending on 1 April. Some writers suggest that April Fools’ originated because those who celebrated on 1 January made fun of those who celebrated on other dates. The use of January 1st as New Year’s Day was common in France by the mid-16th century, and this date was adopted officially in 1564 by the Edict of Roussillon.
- In The Netherlands, the origin of April Fools’ Day is often attributed to the Dutch victory at Brielle in 1572, where the Spanish Duke Álvarez de Toledo was defeated. “Op 1 april verloor Alva zijn bril.” is a Dutch proverb, which can be translated to: “On the first of April, Alva lost his glasses.” In this case, the glasses serve as a metaphor for Brielle. This theory, however, provides no explanation for the international celebration of April Fools’ Day.
- In the UK, an April Fool joke is revealed by shouting “April fool!” at the recipient, who becomes the “April fool”. A study in the 1950s, by folklorists Iona and Peter Opie, found that in the UK, and in countries whose traditions derived from the UK, the joking ceased at midday. A person playing a joke after midday is the “April fool” themselves.
- In Scotland, April Fools’ Day was traditionally called ‘Huntigowk Day’, although this name has fallen into disuse. The name is a corruption of ‘Hunt the Gowk’, “gowk” being Scots for a cuckoo or a foolish person; alternate terms in Gaelic would be Là na Gocaireachd ‘gowking day’ or Là Ruith na Cuthaige ‘the day of running the cuckoo’. The traditional prank is to ask someone to deliver a sealed message that supposedly requests help of some sort. In fact, the message reads “Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile.” The recipient, upon reading it, will explain he can only help if he first contacts another person, and sends the victim to this next person with an identical message, with the same result.
- In England ‘fool’ is known by different names according to the part where it is celebrated. If you are fooled on this day you may be known as ‘noodle’, ‘gob’, ‘gobby’ or ‘noddy’.
- In Ireland it was traditional to entrust the victim with an “important letter” to be given to a named person. That person would then ask the victim to take it to someone else, and so on. The letter when finally opened contained the words “send the fool further”.
- In Poland, prima aprilis (“1 April” in Latin) is a day in which many jokes are told; various hoaxes are prepared by people, media (which sometimes cooperate to make the “information” more credible) and even public institutions. Serious activities are usually avoided. This conviction is so strong that the anti-Turkish alliance with Leopold I signed on April 1, 1683, was backdated to March 31st.
- Danes, Finns, Icelanders, Norwegians and Swedes celebrate April Fools’ Day (aprilsnar in Danish; aprillipäivä in Finnish). Most news media outlets will publish exactly one false story on April 1st; for newspapers this will typically be a first-page article but not the top headline.
- In Italy, France, Belgium, and French-speaking areas of Switzerland and Canada, April 1st tradition is often known as “April fish” (poissons d’avril in French or pesce d’aprile in Italian). This includes attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim’s back without being noticed. Such fish feature prominently on many late 19th- to early 20th-century French April Fools’ Day postcards.
- In India, there have been numerous references to April Fools’ Day in both cinema and popular literature and people are jovially associated with the date. In Indian cinema, Bollywood’s movie April Fool (1964 film) along with its title song is also evergreen. Similar examples may be looked for in other art & craft related fields.
- As well as people playing pranks on one another on April Fools’ Day, elaborate practical jokes have appeared on radio and TV stations, newspapers, web sites, and have been performed by large corporations. In one famous prank from 1957, the BBC broadcast a film in their Panorama current affairs series purporting to show Swiss farmers picking freshly-grown spaghetti, in what they called the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest. The BBC were later flooded with requests to purchase a spaghetti plant, forcing them to declare the film a hoax on the news the next day. With the advent of the Internet and readily available global news services, April Fools’ pranks can catch and embarrass a wider audience than ever before.
- April Fool’s Day is not an official holiday.
- A Joker, Court Jester, or Jokester have become the images associated with April Fool’s Day.
- Some people spend a lot of money and time planning elaborate jokes.
However, it’s never a good idea to be the fool or “act a fool” when it comes to God, especially when we are so close to one of his special days. As I’ve mentioned during my day show, “The Big John Show”, there were some teens that stole vat of holy water from a Catholic church up in Lincoln, Nebraska (https://omaha.com/news/state-and-regional/crime-and-courts/3-teens-stole-vessel-of-holy-water-from-church-in-lincoln/article_152ed7e5-d640-52b6-8116-608bdd439771.html). The police took a theft report this week involving a vessel of holy water. Officers said three teenagers stole the vessel last weekend during a Mass in the gym at St. Michael Catholic Church. The theft was caught on video, which they hope to use to track down the teens. The church estimated the loss at $200. One can only hope the teens will either get caught or do the right thing and turn themselves in. Something can be said when a crook or whoever does something wrong and confesses. It’s a beautiful thing that we have that opportunity to confess our sins. We still have to work on not continuing those sins, but nobody is perfect. We are only human and are born to it.
Luckily, we all have a loving God who believes in us, if you are in Christian Faith. Many religions reference to asking for a gods mercy or forgiveness whenever we do wrong or something that might seem offensive to whatever deity that person chooses to worship. Eventually, our conscious will get us to do that very thing. That is, if we have a conscious. Even though we may not be taught that something isn’t right, sometimes we get that feeling inside of what is wrong, or that something is wrong, but we need to make it right. Even if we aren’t the one who did the wronging, sometimes we are called to be the person to correct the mistake or right the wrong, so to speak. The same can be said about Jesus Christ, who came to earth, only to die on the cross for all of us to be forgiven of our wicked sins. It was during this time almost 2000 years ago that he did that very thing. Unfortunately, many people seem to forget that. We’ve all heard the stories, read the verses in the Holy Bible, or watched shows and movies that portrayed the last several days of Jesus’s walk on earth, leading up to his crucifixion and miraculous resurrection, but what about the backstory of all the decorations and rituals? How about the designs and colors? A lot of Christians don’t feel comfortable discussing that.
The meaning of Easter is Jesus Christ’s victory over death. His resurrection symbolizes the eternal life that is granted to all who believe in Him (https://biblehub.com/john/14-6.htm), as said in John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. The meaning of Easter also symbolizes the complete verification of all that Jesus preached and taught during His three-year ministry. The earliest recorded observance of an Easter celebration comes from the 2nd century, though the commemoration of Jesus’ Resurrection probably occurred earlier. If He had not risen from the dead, if He had merely died and not been resurrected, He would have been considered just another teacher or Rabbi. However, it was the most important part in his final days was how His resurrection changed all that and gave final, irrefutable proof that He was really the Son of God and that He had conquered death once and for all.
However, Easter did not always symbolize Christ’s resurrection from the dead and the meaning of Easter was quite different than what Christians celebrate today. For example, the feast day of Easter was originally a pagan celebration of renewal and rebirth. It was normally celebrated in early spring to honor the pagan Saxon goddess Eostre, the Germanic goddess of dawn who is celebrated during the Spring Equinox (https://www.religioustolerance.org/easter1.htm). On the old Germanic calendar, the equivalent month to April was called “Ōstarmānod” – or Easter-month. The evidence for her as an actual goddess people worshipped is a bit uncertain. She’s mentioned in the writings of an 8th century monk known as Venerable Bede, who reported that pagan Anglo-Saxons in medieval Northumbria held festivals in her honor during the month of April.
When the early missionaries converted the Saxons to Christianity, the holiday, since it fell around the same time as the traditional memorial of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, was merged with the pagan celebration, and became know as Easter. The meaning of Easter was also changed to reflect its new Christian orientation. Today, the meaning of Easter, for million of Christians, is that of honoring and recognizing Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead, and His glorious promises of eternal life for all who believe in Him. Modern Hebrew has readopted the Aramaic word “Pascha” to mean the Christian celebration of Jesus’s resurrection, not the Jewish Passover. In almost every other international language, the holiday is called by some permutation of “Pesach,” the Hebrew word for the Passover holiday/sacrifice. During the period of history marking the birth of the Christian church, both Hebrew and Aramaic were used in the Galilee, where Jesus’s ministry was based. In Aramaic, the holiday is called “Pascha.” The Hebrew word “pesach” is a noun, but it can also be inflected as a verb to mean, depending on the biblical context, “skip over” in a physical sense , or more spiritually as “spare”.
Historically Easter is not the first instance of a pagan ritual described by Bede that is now imbued with Christian meaning. Also in “The Reckoning of Time,” Bede describes the Anglo-Saxon Pagans’ “Mōdraniht,” ( translation to “Night of the Mothers”) that was held on December 24th, or Christmas Eve. Many Christians are uncomfortable in acknowledging the Easter holiday’s pagan name. Others are taking a more philosophical approach and making a valiant effort to rebrand it. Meanwhile, Christians around the world observe Easter with prayer and feasting on a traditional meal, but have you noticed that each year it’s on a different day? As I mentioned earlier, Christmas Eve is on December 24th, the night before Christmas Day on December 25th, but why is Easter always on a different day and sometimes a different month? Well, to answer that would require a little bit of math. You see, The reason Easter changes each year is because it is based on a ‘Pagan’ solar calendar. Easter occurs on the Sunday after the first full moon occurring after the Spring Equinox.
Fixing the date on which the Resurrection of Jesus was to be observed and celebrated triggered a major controversy in early Christianity in which an Eastern and a Western position can be distinguished (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday). The dispute, known as the Paschal controversies, was not definitively resolved until the 8th century. In Asia Minor, Christians observed the day of the Crucifixion on the same day that Jews celebrated the Passover offering—that is, on the 14th day of the first full moon of spring, 14 Nisan of the Jewish calendar. The Resurrection, then, was observed two days later, on 16 Nisan, regardless of the day of the week. In the West the Resurrection of Jesus was celebrated on the first day of the week, Sunday, when Jesus had risen from the dead. Consequently, Easter was always celebrated on the first Sunday after the 14th day of the month of Nisan. Increasingly, the churches opted for the Sunday celebration, and the Quartodecimans (“14th day” proponents) remained a minority. The Council of Nicaea in 325 decreed that Easter should be observed on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox (March 21). Easter, therefore, can fall on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25.
Most of the symbolism around this holiday actually comes from the pre-christian Pagan celebrations of the Spring Equinox. For example, we paint Easter eggs with bright colors at this time of year. The bright colors are a reflection of the spring flowers blooming and egg itself may be linked to chickens’ return to laying after the long winter months where chicken’s lay very few, if any, eggs. The Easter rabbit symbolizes fertility. We all know that bunnies get pretty busy if you know what I mean, so they are a perfect animal to symbolically represent the fertility of springtime. It makes sense that the chosen date to represent the rebirth of Jesus was based around a time(the Spring Equinox) that was already being celebrated for light and life. The use of painted and decorated Easter eggs was first recorded in the 13th century. The church prohibited the eating of eggs during Holy Week, but chickens continued to lay eggs during that week, and the notion of specially identifying those as “Holy Week” eggs brought about their decoration. The egg itself became a symbol of the Resurrection. Just as Jesus rose from the tomb, the egg symbolizes new life emerging from the eggshell. In the Orthodox tradition eggs are painted red to symbolize the blood Jesus shed on the cross.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this little bit of funny facts:
- One of the oddest Easter customs was lifting, or heaving, practiced in the Victorian period (mid-1800s). On Easter Monday (the day after Easter), a man could take hold of and lift any woman off the ground and kiss her. On Easter Tuesday, ladies got their turn to lift and kiss any man. The practice fell out of favor when people began to object to being lifted.
- Easter in medieval times involves throwing an egg in churches. The custom would start with the priest throwing a hard-boiled egg to a choir boy. He who catches it would then toss it to another, and so on. Upon the clock striking 12, whoever holds the egg wins and keeps the egg.
- Traditional clothing for Easter includes pastel colors and floral prints. It signifies the onset of Spring. The trend suggests that people spend around $3.3 billion on Easter clothes.
- A traditional feast for Easter include eggs, chocolate, sweet bread, ham, and lamb.
Happy Easter to everyone! May God Bless You In The Days To Come!
– Big John