Happy April Fools' Day
April Fool! Gotcha! ~by Kelvin~
Posted on April 1, 2008 at 12:25 am by Kelvin
Filed Under EHM3066, Others
Words:655 | Sentences:139 | Gunning-Fog:6 | Flesch-Kincaid:3 | Flesch:79
Today is the first of April which is also known as April Fools’ Day… it is the only day that people play pranks and jokes on each other and gets away with it… or gets played back… one of the most common trick is to point down on a friends shoe and say,”Your shoelace is untied”… and once your friend look down you’ll say,”April Fool!”… it is just to have a laugh…
There are many stories about the origin of April Fools’ Day… in ancient days, they have always celebrated New Year’s Day on the first of April… in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calender to replace the old Julian Calender… many refused to accept first of January as New Year’s Day and continued to celebrate it on first of April… due to this, people began to make fun of these tradisionalists, sending them on ‘fool’s errands’, and causing them to believe in something false… soon, it spread through Europe and hence the name ‘April Fools’ Day’…
Another story was also provided by Joseph Boskin, professor of history at Boston University.. he explained that April Fools’ Day came about during the practice of Constantine reign… a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could run the empire better… taking up their challenge, Constantine allowed a jester name Kugel to be king for a day… being the clown that he is, Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity and foolishness for the day… and eventually it became an annual event till today…
April Fools’ Day is also a day people celebrated worldwide… from young to old, people play pranks on each other and make others believe something completely false so just to have a silly grin… it is so popular that many big corporations took the effort to play the biggest pranks they could… one of the biggest pranks is played by BBC in 1957 on their news show Panorama… they said that thanks to the flavourably good weather, Switzerland was experiencing a spaghetti harvest… they even showed footage of people pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees… many people called BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees… BBC replied by saying they should place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best… hahaha…
Another prank happened in 1962 where there was only one TV channel in Sweden which is broadcast in black and white… their technical expert, Kjell Stensson appeared on the news to announce that thanks to recent technologies, viewers could easily convert their existing TV to display colour reception… and all they have to do was to pull a nylon stocking over the TV screen… he then proceeded demonstrating it and thousands of people were taken into it… it’s hard to believe isn’t it?
In 1998, Burger King publish an advertisement in ‘USA Today’ announcing their new “Left-Handed Whopper” specially designed for the left-handed Americans… the whopper had the same ingredients as the original whopper but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees so that it would drip out of the right side instead of the left… thousand of people had gone to request the new whopper and many others requested their own right-handed whopper… can you imagine it?
There are many more pranks that you could find on the net… if you are interested you could click here for more pranks… it shows the top 100 April Fools’ Day hoaxes of all times… you surely will laugh your socks off…
Ohya, before I end this post, let me say something… GOTCHA! the second story about Kugel becoming king for a day is completely false… Boskin made the whole thing up in 1983…
So, APRIL FOOL! hahaha…
Inspired by Jusco Pearl magazines Mac 2008 issue… the two stories was taken from the magizine… more info on April Fools’ Day, you could check out Wikipedia or Origin of April Fools’ Day…
There are many stories about the origin of April Fools’ Day… in ancient days, they have always celebrated New Year’s Day on the first of April… in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calender to replace the old Julian Calender… many refused to accept first of January as New Year’s Day and continued to celebrate it on first of April… due to this, people began to make fun of these tradisionalists, sending them on ‘fool’s errands’, and causing them to believe in something false… soon, it spread through Europe and hence the name ‘April Fools’ Day’…
Another story was also provided by Joseph Boskin, professor of history at Boston University.. he explained that April Fools’ Day came about during the practice of Constantine reign… a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could run the empire better… taking up their challenge, Constantine allowed a jester name Kugel to be king for a day… being the clown that he is, Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity and foolishness for the day… and eventually it became an annual event till today…
April Fools’ Day is also a day people celebrated worldwide… from young to old, people play pranks on each other and make others believe something completely false so just to have a silly grin… it is so popular that many big corporations took the effort to play the biggest pranks they could… one of the biggest pranks is played by BBC in 1957 on their news show Panorama… they said that thanks to the flavourably good weather, Switzerland was experiencing a spaghetti harvest… they even showed footage of people pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees… many people called BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees… BBC replied by saying they should place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best… hahaha…
Another prank happened in 1962 where there was only one TV channel in Sweden which is broadcast in black and white… their technical expert, Kjell Stensson appeared on the news to announce that thanks to recent technologies, viewers could easily convert their existing TV to display colour reception… and all they have to do was to pull a nylon stocking over the TV screen… he then proceeded demonstrating it and thousands of people were taken into it… it’s hard to believe isn’t it?
In 1998, Burger King publish an advertisement in ‘USA Today’ announcing their new “Left-Handed Whopper” specially designed for the left-handed Americans… the whopper had the same ingredients as the original whopper but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees so that it would drip out of the right side instead of the left… thousand of people had gone to request the new whopper and many others requested their own right-handed whopper… can you imagine it?
There are many more pranks that you could find on the net… if you are interested you could click here for more pranks… it shows the top 100 April Fools’ Day hoaxes of all times… you surely will laugh your socks off…
Ohya, before I end this post, let me say something… GOTCHA! the second story about Kugel becoming king for a day is completely false… Boskin made the whole thing up in 1983…
So, APRIL FOOL! hahaha…
Inspired by Jusco Pearl magazines Mac 2008 issue… the two stories was taken from the magizine… more info on April Fools’ Day, you could check out Wikipedia or Origin of April Fools’ Day…
My EHM post of the week...
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