April Fools' Day 2025: Unique history, most famous pranks and celebrations

From France to Iceland to the United States April Fools Day is being celebrated on Tuesday April 1 with practical jokes and elaborate hoaxes so make sure to triple check viral posts and dont leave your back open to any stray sticky notesThe jokesters custom has been around for hundreds of years although its exact birth is difficult to pinpoint These days depending on your location it could be marked with a fish secretly pinned to someones back or a whoopee cushion or even news reports of flying penguins yes that actually happened In the US the pranks are typically followed by screams of April Fools to make sure all are aware that they were the unsuspecting recipient of a practical jokeHere are some thing to know about April Fools Day and its historyWhere did April Fools Day come fromThere are plenty of theories about where this day of pranks and hoaxes came from Its not clear exactly which one might be true But what is clear is that April Fools Day has roots stretching back hundreds of yearsOne idea is that it dates back to France in 1564 when King Charles IX moved the New Year celebration from its weeklong observance beginning March 25 to a celebration on January 1 according to the Library of Congress Those who forgot or were never told about the change were mocked Although the library notes that the true history of the New Year is more complicated as different parts of the country observed it on different daysA similar theory ties April Fools Day to the 1582 change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar according to the library But it explains that this type of origin story has been used to explain several holidays and may be more of a migratory legendAnd then theres the theory that it could be connected to the March 21 vernal equinox which is known as a day when people are tricked by unexpected weather changes according to Encyclopedia BritannicaWhatever its origin the first time there was clear documented reference to the day was in 1561 when the Flemish writer Eduard De Dene wrote in his poem about a nobleman sending his servant on pointless tasks according to the Library of Congress The servant soon realises that he has been iquestsent on fools errands because its April 1 the library statesWhat are some of the most famous April Fools Day pranksIn 2021 thenfirst lady Jill Biden pretended to be a flight attendant on an airplane traveling from California to Washington She wore a a Jasmine nametag and passed out Dove ice cream bars while wearing a black mask black pantsuit and wig A few minutes later iquestJasmineiquest reemerged without the wig revealing herself to be Jill Biden laughing and proclaiming April FoolsGoogle cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin became known for announcing outlandish ideas every April Fools Day soon after starting their company more than a quarter century ago One year Google posted a job opening for a Copernicus research center on the moon Another year the company said it planned to roll out a iquestscratch and sniffiquest feature on its search engineIn 1992 NPRs Talk of the Nation program announced that formerPresident Richard Nixon who resigned in 1974 would be running for president according to the Museum of Hoaxes A comedian had impersonated Nixon to say iquestI never did anything wrong and I wont do it againOutside of the US one of the most notable pranks involved the BBC World Service in 1980 declaring that Big Ben would become a digital clock and renamed Digital Dave according to the UK ParliamentHow is April Fools Day celebrated around the worldFrom Scotland to Iceland to the US the day is honoured in a wide array of waysIn France the day is known as poisson davril or April Fish and has long had a fishthemed pranking tradition In modern times its become more of a day for children to relish in attaching paper fish to their friends backs Atlas Obscura saysIn Scotland April Fools has a history of being a twoday event April 1 is known as Gowkie Day or Hunt the Gowk explained Encyclopedia Britannica Gowk is a term used to describe a fool On April 2 the celebration may become more physical with children attaching kick me signs to peoples backsThe day is also celebrated in Iceland with the aim being to get people to hlaupa apriacutel or make an April run In other words to trick someone in a way that makes them travel to a different location News agencies have also been known to participate in pranking people In 2014 for example Iceland Review ran a story with the headline Google Signs Deal with Iceland saying the fake news was part of a longstanding tradition of the Icelandic media