April Fool’s Day Pranks

As each year goes by, some dates are more special than others. That happens because these days have been selected to represent some sort of tradition, such as Mother’s Day, Christmas, Easter, and others. Now, the next date to be celebrated is the April Fool’s Day, which is always on the 1st of April.

A special day for fun

The difference between April Fool’s and other usual holidays is that it is not legally recognized. That is why commerce and school activities happen on the day as usual, without any sort of change. But one thing that has already been established by the tradition is that pranks and jokes are allowed all day long.

Although adults and grown up people still participate with some jokes, the major public of the day’s activities are kids and teenagers. As parents allow the practice of these games, they get worried about what kind of prank their children will learn and do. Nowadays, even the most innocent joke might offend a child.

Fools of the past

History shows that April Fool’s started off through stories in ancient literature. The first record is of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in which The Nun’s Priest Tale (1392) was misinterpreted because of the date reference. The author probably wanted to mean 32 days after March, and not the 32nd of March. Because of that, the date to reference the tale ended up being April 1st.

Some famous pranks on April Fool’s made by known companies or celebrities include Google’s change of name to Topeka, a city that wanted to be renamed as Google. So, for one day, Google was the one that changed its identity. Also, Justin Bieber took over the website Funny or Die, and had the design projected over his pictures.