All Fool’s Day, April 1st how did it come into being the day of pranks?

All Fool’s Day

I am often asking myself, why holidays are when they are? I know that Easter is set by the lunar cycles of the moon and vaguely know about why Halloween and Presidents Day are when there are and how they came about, but April Fool’s Day is one I have never looked up before.

Being today is that day, I thought you might find some of these interesting.

From Wikipedia, can it have been the FOX?

The earliest recorded association between April 1 and foolishness can be found in Chaucer‘s Canterbury Tales (1392). Many writers suggest that the restoration of January 1 by Pope Gregory XIII as New Year’s Day of the Gregorian Calendar in the 16th century was responsible for the creation of the holiday, sometimes questioned for earlier references.^[1]

In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392), the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two.^[4] Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon.^[5] Thus, the passage originally meant 32 days after April, i.e. May 2,^[6] the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381. Readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean “March 32”, i.e. April 1.^[7] In Chaucer’s tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox.

From infoplease.com, the ultimate fool’s day origin, something made up!

Constantine and Kugel

Another explanation of the origins of April Fools’ Day was provided by Joseph Boskin, a professor of history at Boston University. He explained that the practice began during the reign of Constantine, when a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could do a better job of running the empire. Constantine, amused, allowed a jester named Kugel to be king for one day. Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity on that day, and the custom became an annual event.

“In a way,” explained Prof. Boskin, “it was a very serious day. In those times fools were really wise men. It was the role of jesters to put things in perspective with humor.”

This explanation was brought to the public’s attention in an Associated Press article printed by many newspapers in 1983. There was only one catch: Boskin made the whole thing up. It took a couple of weeks for the AP to realize that they’d been victims of an April Fools’ joke themselves.

These are only two of I am certain many more. No matter the origin, it is a day to reckon with and beware the news. Just this morning, Google announced the end to YouTube, “It turns out that YouTube was just a big contest”. And you think this is the biggest prank out there, think on. cheers and I do have a bridge for sale somewhere.

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