Aprils fools day is celebrated every year on the 1st of April when family, friends, and co-workers play pranks on each other and have a hearty laugh, however, did you know that this day came into existence due to a mistake in the calendar.
There have been various theories regarding when April fools day came to be. One of the popularly known theories is that from around 1580 in France during the reformation of the calendar, before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. People in France celebrated New Year in march for eight days before went by the Gregorian calendar, from 25th March to 1st April. When the calendar systems changed the eighth day moved from April 1st to January 1st.
Due to no communication medium a lot of people did not hear about the calendar change and hence continued celebrating New Year on 1st April, and later kept on celebrating it as a form of rebellion. The people who saw this rebellious move considered them a fool for celebrating New Year on a different date than the rest of the world. This harassment of the fools developed on to become a day when people would play pranks.
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In England however, April fools day was already established in the year even though they didn’t switch calendars until 1752 and hence this tradition of playing pranks at people has been celebrated across the world in different ways.
Facts on April fools day
In France, April fools day is called Poisson d’Avril
In Scotland, they call the day “Hunting the Gawk”
In Portugal people celebrated April fools day by throwing flour at each other
In England, anyone who is successfully fooled before midday is called a “noodle”, “gob”, “gobby” or “noddy” while the one fooling after midday is called a fool themselves.
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