April Fool’s Day 2017: Origin, history and interesting facts surrounding the day

New Delhi: All Fools’ Day is being celebrated on April 01 worldwide but did you ever wonder why do we celebrate it? Who was the first person in the world to play first Fools’ prank? Why and when did it start in India? Well, here are all the answers to questions related to Fools day.

Some of the reasons behind the celebration of Fool’s day:

Gregorian calendar: According to the reports, it is generally believed that Pope Gregory XIII was the real man behind April Fool’s day. Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, ruled the new calendar to start from January 1, instead of the hitherto celebration of new year in the end of March. The change was published and people were notified. It was adopted by France but some people across Europe failed to register the use of the new date and ended up celebrating their New Year on April 1 as per Julian calendar. Consequently, those who adopted the new calendar referred others as fools and hence the tradition of Fool’s Day came into light.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: In 1932, Chaucher mentioned ‘Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two’ — an error in a copy of Canterbury Tales, which changed its whole meaning.The original line of the copy meant 32 days after March that is May 2, but people took it to mean March 32 or April 1. This is seen as a reference to April Fool’s Day.

Renewal Festivals: Another reason behind the concept of April fool’s day was the renewal of festivals that marked the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

French revolution: April 1 is also celebrated as the anniversary of the French revolution. If historians are to be believed, on April 1, 1789, King George III of England befooled French and English public after King Louis XVI pretended to step down. Peasants took to the streets in Euphoria and celebrated their new freedom – then got arrested and imprisoned.

Roman mythology: The story is related to Proserpina (an ancient Roman goddess), who got abducted by the ‘god of death’, Pluto. He brought her to live with him in the underworld. Seeking help Proserpina, called her mother Ceres but she couldn’t help her daughter as she could only hear the echo of her Proserpina’s voice and searched in vain. This fruitless search was said to be the beginning of the ‘fool’s journey.

Here are some fun-filled facts about the day we bet you never knew:
Gmail- a widely used electronic mail service was released on April 01, 2004. Its services were widely assumed as an April Fools Day joke.

In the year 1974 in Alaska on April Fool’s Day, a man dragged 70 tires and set them on fire on a dormant volcano. Seeing the fumes of the fire, scared the local residents and they thought that the volcano had erupted.

In the year 2002, NASA released a photoshopped picture of the moon made of cheese, with an expiration date printed on one of its craters.