The History of April Fools Day

The BBC has a story up (well, since 1998) about the history of April Fools day, it starts of with the line:

Every year on April 1 the unwitting, the gullible and the plain stupid are caught out by tall stories or practical jokes. But why do people play these jokes at all?

But we will get back to that quote a bit later.

Everyone has their favorite April Fools Day story. The BBC ran theirs- a 1957 BBC broadcast that discussed Spaghetti farming in Switzerland. At the time spaghetti was still relatively new to Europe so people called in to find out how to grow their own spaghetti bushes.

The Museum of Hoaxes lists the top 100 Hoaxes of all time (with the BBC’s coming in at #1). Some really good ones their, worth checking out.