A History of Hoaxes

We humans like mischief, and not only on April Fools’ Day

Jokers are always keen to come out and play.

There’s no question that April Fools’ Day is an international phenomenon. But nobody really knows how it began. One possible predecessor is the Roman tradition of the spring festival Hilaria (Latin for cheerful, merry) that was held in March; it included games, processions and masquerades, during which disguised commoners could imitate nobility to devious ends.

It’s hard to say whether this ancient festival’s similarities to modern April Fools’ Day are legitimate or coincidental, as the first recorded mentions of the occasion didn’t appear until several hundred years later. In 1561, for example, a Flemish poet wrote some comical verse about a nobleman who sends his servant back and forth on ludicrous errands in preparation for a wedding feast (the poem’s title roughly translates to “Refrain on errand-day / which is the first of April”). And the first known mention of April Fools’ Day in Britain comes in 1686 when biographer John Aubrey described the first day of April as a “Fooles holy day”.

It’s clear that the habit of sending innocent victims on a ‘fool’s errand’ was rampant in Europe by the late 1600s. On April Fools’ Day in 1698, so many were tricked into going to the Tower of London to watch ‘The Washing of the Lions’ (a ceremony that didn’t exist) that the April 2 edition of a local newspaper had to debunk the hoax – and publicly mock those who fell for it.

From there, it’s a pretty straight line between lion washing and spaghetti farming (on April 1, 1957, BBC’s Panorama fooled some viewers into believing spaghetti grew on trees). And while we may not know the exact origin of April Fools’ Day, it’s clear it speaks to the inner joker in much of humanity – and is therefore here to stay.