Points from NI proes and desdobles quarthadast: April fool's day :pranks and media hoaxes

As a boy, my favourite way of making an "April fool " of my father was to give him empty eggshells in eggcups as boiled eggs for breakfast. He usually hadn't noticed the date b4 breakfast.

Note : A prankster plays pranks on people.He pranks them. If he hoaxes people, he gets them to believe somthing untrue.

Here is a selection from
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com

The Washing of the Lions (1698)

The April 2, 1698 edition of Dawks’s News-Letter reported that “Yesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed.” This is the first recorded instance of a popular April Fool's Day prank that involved sending people to the Tower of London to see the "washing of the lions." The joke was that there was no lion-washing ceremony. It was a fool's errand. (For more info, see the Hoaxipedia article: Washing The Lions)
NB: the tower of london for centuries housed many things: the mint, the Royal Menagerie (that is, zoo, and the only one in England until Victorian times) , with Lions.This gave rise rise to "seeing the lions "(relative sophistication: someone who had "seen the lions" had visited London and seen and done all that there was to do and see. )-> social "lionhunting" literary lions, etc.

One of the most famous : The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

01/04/1957: The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." Related:
• The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest (The footage itself on YouTube)
• The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest (full-length article)

01/04/1977: The British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic said to consist of several semi-colon-shaped islands located in the Indian Ocean. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Only a few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology. . Related:
• San Serriffe (full-length article)

You tube has a big selection, most bad , or worse. here's one: