Submitted by
Dee Loflin, SMT Manager/Editor

United States - Did you call the office this morning saying you were going to be an hour late for work because your car would not start and then walk in a minute later and say “April Fools!” or did you put a rubber band around the faucet so the next person to turn it on gets sprayed all over??

April Fools’ Day is celebrated on April 1st of each year. Sometimes referred to as ‘All Fools’ Day, it is not a national holiday.  April Fools Day is widely recognized and celebrated, by many, as a day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other.

Here is a little April Fools History:   (There are different theories as to the beginning of April Fools Day.)

“The earliest recorded association between April 1 and foolishness can be found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392).

In the 1392 writings by Chaucer,Canterbury Tales, the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is set March thirty days and two.  Modern scholars believe that there was a copying error in the manuscripts and that Chaucer actually meant 32 days after April, i.e. May 2. (the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia).  The readers misunderstood it to mean March 32, i.e. April 1.  In Chaucer’s tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox.

Many writers suggest that the restoration, in 1582,  of January 1 by Pope Gregory XIII as New Year’s Day of the Gregorian Calendar in the 16th century was responsible for the birth of the holiday.    With New Year’s Day moved to January 1, not all people  were aware of this news, or refused to accept it, and celebrated the new year on April 1st, as in the past.  These people were then labeled “fools”  and were subject to ridicule and practical jokes.

1508 – French poet, Eloy d’Amerval referred to a poissond’avril (April fool, literally April fish) a possible reference to the April Fool holiday.

1539 – Flemish poet Eduard de Dene wrote of a nobleman who sent his servants on foolish errands on April 1.

1686 – John Aubrey referred to April Fools Day as Fools holy day, the first British reference.

1686 – On April 1, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to “see the Lions washed”